David Koloane

1993

No object stands on itself; it always builds upon other objects.

Artist/curator David Koloane (1938) has been involved in the visual arts in South Africa for the last twenty-five years.

Koloane studied art at the Bill Ainslie Studios in Johannesburg. He established a reputation both locally and internationally as a pioneer black artist in apartheid South Africa and was a founder member of institutions promoting and supporting black talent in South Africa from the mid Seventies. He is the co-founder and director of the Fordsburg Artists Studios (the Bag Factory).

Koloane's work is abstract expressionistic but has recently gained a more figurative character. Koloane work and recurrent themes should perhaps be viewed in the social context of what shaped his sense of identity as a man and as an artist. The painter's preoccupation with the dark side of urban life can be interpreted as a constant reminder that the past still hovers over South Africa. David Koloane wants to make new what has become old.

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