Kemang Wa Lehulere's "Canis Major 3" features an abstract composition in black and white, utilizing fluid, sweeping lines that suggest motion and ambiguity. The imagery hints at fragmented texts and shapes that evoke school desks and the familiar-yet-alien forms of Alsatian dogs. The drawing employs a smudged technique reminiscent of chalk on a blackboard, creating a sense of impermanence. Through this work, Wa Lehulere layers personal and collective histories, reflecting on South Africa's tumultuous past and its enduring impact on present social structures. ...
Kemang Wa Lehulere’s practice engages with the past of South Africa, tracing the ways it still haunts the country’s current condition. Working with personal and collective histories and archives, the artist repeatedly employs found objects representing both individual and collective memory. Wooden, old-looking school desks or mass-produced ceramic sculptures of Alsatian dogs are at once familiar and alienating; a reminder from childhood also acting as a reminder of the complexity of social structures within the Apartheid regime of South Africa. Inspired by set design and theatre, Wa Lehulere’s drawings and ‘living sculptures’, comprising smudged chalk drawings on blackboards, sculptures made of grass and soil and wall etchings, further dwell on the processes of revision, juxtaposition and the malfunction of histories. By making history physical and personal, the artist contrasts liberation with repression and sharply connects the painful past with a painful present. ...
