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AK: Your exhibition consists of three types of work. There are the large-scale hanging pieces which consist of a thick brown paper base that has been folded or crumpled to the point that it is highly textural, and then painted in a largely monochromatic way with acrylic – predominantly red, but also blue and yellow – primary colours. Over these large primary textural planes you add or embellish with Christian imagery – the cross in yellow, self-portraits – an exceedingly Christlike rasta and also glue on pieces of paper torn from The Bible and other significant texts. Would you please comment on this strong Christian iconographic presence in your work?
TK: a year ago i sustained an injury on ma head that required 28 stitches. i'd never seen so much blood pouring out of me. i really thought that was the end of ma being as a living person - i saw ma history unfold - since the accident was crime on ma being i saw ma self as one of those persons who are sacrificial to the transitional era of our history - it's not so much the accident but the indifference of the people around who would have perhaps sustained worse injuries had i not been there - i believe christ was not the only person to be nailed on the cross - if he prevailed in our era he would have been shot in the back of his head, in america he would have hung or been electrified, but the cross has acquired a unique power being a conveyance of both physical and spiritual suffering - red as a colour is a recurring colour in my pleasant dreams as well as my nightmares, blue being the colour of jazz and urban night hopes of attaining an eternal orgasm from a conversation or merely a well written book that has nothing to do with life as we experience if - it's that thin line between reality and vision whose nature is being perpetually illusive - yellow is a colour that is almost invisible, it's filled with a lot of gestures and probabilities, very close to light - i yearn for light in ma life - christianity has very little to do with it since i know less about christ than i do my own existential pains!
AK: The second kind of works are books that have been sealed by a layer of pain and then violated by the introduction of stones or other materials (bolts). I am deeply interested in your motivation for desecrating the books; making them unreadable – in some cases writing over the printed text in your own handwriting – covering and English or French language printed text with your Zulu language scrawl.
TK: as much as a lot of good is attributed to books in the history of human beings so much pain also is a consequence of books and ma experience with books has been both a pleasurable and an agonising one - as long as i've read history, philosophy, poetry and certain novels ma life has been very uneasy and burdened with questions about the authenticity of our contemporary existence - i'm in a way expelling certain intellectual influences that have contributed to ma cynical attitude i have towards a lot that prevail in ma midst. on an aesthetic aspect i think certain things ought to be transformed once they have served their purpose - they're rather amazing and pleasing to the eye as well as the mind.
AK: The third kind of work on show are installation pieces which consist of books that have been torn, ruptured, raped, scattered over the floor and then violated again with a layer of blood red acrylic – sprinkled disdainfully, or viciously even, to create an uncomfortable image of the rape of literature, the abortion of a particular type of culture. I would like to know more about this process and your choice to work so abusively with printed matter, with the printed word.
TK: i believe in rituals and for me they have to do with letting go of the old but the process is not an easy or even a pleasant experience - as ma traditional history would attest the sacrifice of animals as a way of appeasing the spirits, mind you animals were a measure of a man's essence and depth of his spirit, so are books for me. i felt i was losing my self in them and also being the embodiments of another culture, language and thoughts. i felt a certain alienation whose poison i couldn't deal with anymore - in the after thought i feel a loss and also a liberty.
ps sorry for taking so long a time to respond it's
just that ma existence is chrononic at present
