A Seat at the Altar

Seated At the Altar was created for the September 2020 cover of onScene Magazine. The most prevalent theme of this work is gender-based violence. 

South Africa is experiencing a period wherein women are angry and tired of fighting gender-based violence. In 2018, the first call was made for a national shutdown of South Africa in protest of gender-based violence through The Total Shutdown. In 2019, there was a resurgence of that call through ‘Am I Next?’. I have vivid flashbacks of myself, lying face down on tar roads of Johannesburg’s ‘Am I Next’ mass protest. It is for this reason that the theme of gender-based violence is so relevant to Seated At The Altar’s thematic direction.

Conceptually, this work centres around the symbolism of death, abuse, and violence portrayed through a woman’s body. This work was created in communion with my ancestors (amadlozi). Through a ritual-led art performance, I covered my body in red and black water-based paint as to let my body be the paintbrush of each artwork. This performance included laying my red-painted naked body onto each parchment. Using black paint on my face and feet, I added prints of my face then walked over the paper with my eyes closed. 

Upon the conclusion of my ritual and performance, I became conscious of my black and red body prints across each page. A Seat At The Altar is symbolic of gender-based violence, a physical and spiritual war that women face every day.