NMU post-grad art students’ show has serious themes

NMU Visual Arts post-graduate students Robyn Munnick, Nishil Vaghmaria and Nicole Jordan are exhibiting in The Candidates Show 2019 at the university’s art gallery in Bird Street until February 21.

Faculty of Arts executive dean Professor Rose Boswell opened the School of Music, Art and Design exhibition on Wednesday.

The three students are presenting:

The Expectation of Nothingness

“The Expectation of Nothingness” by Munnick, are paintings which focus on “nothingness” as a “product of expectation”.

“The research problem was influenced by the absence of my mother in our home after being diagnosed with an ovarian tumour [2013].

“The diagnosis which brought on a physical and emotional absence of the matriarch of my family; led to an emotional trauma that triggered a feeling of ‘nothingness’ within me.

“The overarching problem in the study is thus: how this ‘nothingness’ could be expressed in my art.”

Visual Resistance Through Détournement

“Visual Resistance Through Détournement” by Vaghmaria is a collection of illustrations triggered by the researcher’s social and personal understandings of societal control.

Vaghmaria sees his study as an expression of his resistance to capitalism and consumerism.

He aims to reveal and expose the workings of those systems of control visually, with particular attention being paid to our current global, cultural, socio-political and economic order and the limitations that are imposed on the individual in terms of freedom of choice and expression.

Sien Jou Môre

“Sien Jou Môre” by Jordan, is a photographic research study which comments on the visual representation of women between the ages of 20 and 30 within white, contemporary Afrikaans culture.

This will be achieved through an analysis of stereotypes evident in Afrikaner culture.

The research aims to comment on how the emerging post-apartheid generation of young Afrikaner women are responding to the cultural expectations and engaging with their Afrikaner identity in the way they choose to represent themselves through tableau portrait photography.

The NMU gallery is open on weekdays from 9am to 3pm.

• Inquiries: Jonathan, 041-504-3293, gallery@mandela.ac.za