Kemang Wa Lehulere's "The odds must be crazy" is a painting dominated by a palette of greens and earthy tones, using expressive brushstrokes to create a layered, abstract composition. The work lacks any distinct or recognizable figures, instead inviting interpretation through its textured, almost chaotic visual narrative. The style is abstract, employing a technique that suggests movement and depth. This piece connects with Wa Lehulere’s focus on South Africa's complex history, making tangible the themes of personal and collective memory inherent to his practice. ...
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. ...
