Kemang Wa Lehulere’s "Odour of warm, yet dried up soil" is a dynamic painting with a rich, earthy palette, featuring swirling strokes of burnt orange, deep red, and turquoise against a dark background. The abstract, organic shapes evoke the textures of soil and natural elements, hinting at themes of land and memory. The energetic brushwork and vibrant contrasts reflect an expressionistic style. Through this piece, Wa Lehulere explores the lasting impact of South Africa's past, merging personal and historical narratives to comment on ongoing social complexities. ...
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. ...
