1. This is my land, where I was born
30 x 20.5cm, silk and cotton embroidery thread on calico
This work is the most important to me because this is where I began my creative journey that had been deferred. It is where I had to discover how to transcend my own fear of the art world by realizing the relevance of my own subjective experience. This is when I could begin to feel empowered within my own creative journey. This fear is something that I believe I share with other women, that we struggle to embody the significance and relevance of own subjective experiences.
This work began as a narrative. I realized that it was too subjective and self conscious. Defining the personal within the complex political human narrative of South Africa invites self consciousness and the didactic. To break this explicitness, I decided to write a poem and understood that the creation of metaphors was a possible solution to the didactic. The development of this narrative into the visual created a dimension to the particular experience that deepened my understanding of the complex personal journey.
I said to myself, “I must remember how to do this”. Reflecting back on this work reminds me that I do have the courage and the means to express how I feel and see the world.
This work embraces the metaphor and places it into the mythic context. The narrative is used as a departure point and is literally woven into the visual metaphor. It places the land into the sea. Both are seen as eternal metaphors within an endless narrative of time. This is how I see history – seamless and repetitive.