KHAYELITSHA
Khayelitsha, this work of art is based Ciska’s
experiences in the townships around Cape Town in South Africa, where for a
period of eight years she went on home visits to help HIV/AIDS infected women
and children and where amongst others she met and interviewed Thandeka Zulu, an
AIDS infected mother of three children in 2010. Afterwards Ciska reflects in
her art works on the immense poverty and poor living conditions in the slums
and poor areas of Khayelitsha where hundreds of thousands of people live on the
edge of acceptability, without running water, electricity or sewerage.
This work consists of a serie plastic construction
canvasses (each of 2 x 3 meters) painted by Ciska with primer, acrylic paint
and markers. Together they can be lined up three dimensionally, both in a
larger and smaller number of four, forming a carre of 300 x300 cm, thus
reconstructing the poor townships around Cape Town in a 3D landscape. In this
installation of paintings Ciska does not represent an aesthetically finished
artwork, but the process of painting an impossibility, as a metaphor of the
grinding living conditions which make a quality life impossible for millions of
poor people.
The construction canvasses made of plastic to protect
against water, are ill suitable to paint on as nothing sticks onto the surface
and the paint simply bounces off. Despite the transitory result of the work
Ciska continued creating this installation of paintings as a reflection of her
powerlessness in helping in the fight against worldwide poverty, by persevering
in her, no matter how small, contribution to the well being of people.
Also
see https://www.ciskadehartogh.com/paintings
