Kemang Wa Lehulere's "The Sky is Coming Home" features dynamic black brushstrokes against a white backdrop, creating a sense of movement through abstract, swirling forms. The drawing suggests the ephemeral nature of memory and identity, with recognizable gestural marks forming an almost ethereal presence on the page. The artwork employs an expressive style, echoing the smudged chalk techniques and theatrical elements typical in Wa Lehulere's work. This piece reflects the artist's ongoing exploration of South Africa's complex history, intertwining personal and collective narratives to connect the past with the present. ...
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. ...
