Contemporary Portraits
The Last King of Opobo
Human Flowers of Flesh
“As humans we are towering, teetering and exquisitely-wrought puzzle-boxes. The modern world is marked by hybrid identities forged in migration. Along this journey many questions of boundaries, cultural practice and identity are encountered. Yet we all exist under a single sun, a unifying force of life. We are inextricably similar - yet so different. The only guarantee in life being we will one day return to the soil which birthed us.”
Morogo
Scorched
La Spiaggia
Silk & Gravel
Silk & Gravel Pt. 1
Silk & Gravel Pt. 2
Silk & Gravel Pt. 3
Who is Thomas Mathibe?
Many may know Thomas from the South Downs traffic light where he works the corner for donations.
Fewer know he used the money to attend night school in pursuit of his matric.
Fewer still will know that in 2012 he had to give that dream up after a drunk truck driver hit him, putting him in hospital and doing irreversible brain damage that has made it impossible for him to recall information he learns properly.
As the main bread winner in his home he supports his mother and is helping pay for his younger sisters UNISA fees, saying one day when she is educated he will be able to rest.
For this shoot I wanted to focus on the manner in which he alters his own appearance and identity in order to commodify himself for society as a person worth supporting or donating too.
This made me think of how we all abstract and manipulate our outward identities to fit into the culture of our society, community or workplace.
Lucid Dreams
An exploration of the idea behind being both lost yet found and in control in a Lucid dream. As someone who has had a tumultuous relationship with sleep and dreaming lost memories of seemingly important abstract messages and reoccurring dreams inspired this image. Dreams often connect our memories with our feelings. Dreams have been thought to be signs or messages from our ancestors. Evidently dreams are a powerful concept and apply to multiple facets of the human condition; hopes, fears and memories. Similarly to us they exist three dimensionally, as they constitute the present, past and future and therefore have a life of their own.