Cape Town Art Fair

Cape Town Art Fair
This photo is of an artwork called Boko Harem (which I'd guess is a play on Boko Haram), by Catherine Ocholla. It speaks a thousand words, doesn't it?

I went along to the Cape Town Art Fair (which regrettably ends on 1 March) and spent about two hours browsing dozens of works, mostly by local artists, but including many from other African and European artists. The Avenue (a new venue in the same building as the V&A Waterfront's Aquarium), was light, airy, and not too crowded inside. What was nice about the fair was that while browsing we had the opportunity to meet several of the artists, even students from local art schools. The flip side to that privileged is that there are many genres that I simply don't get - so because I realise that art is quite personal to the artist I kept feeling that I had to be on my guard not to unintentionally offend their creators (which I have to admit was in one or two cases quite difficult not to do). :-/

Take a look at some of the works below. These, called Russian Bride, by Gavin Rain, are fantastic. If you get up real close you'll see that the images are created from hundreds of painted circles. Isn't it awesome how he crafted every circle to contribute to the overall image - almost like pixels on a monitor?

Also, check out this jacket made from old computer keyboards. Pretty impressive hey (albeit, probably quite uncomfortable to wear ;) )?

Given that I'm a photographer, I guess it's understandable that I mostly prefer photographs (vs. sculptures and paintings). So the last one that I specifically want to show you is a set of two photos, by Miriam Syowia Kyambi - pretty awesome hey? :)

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