Local artist showcased at DAG
Thami Jali’s solo exhibition of remarkable etchings and silk-screens on paper will be held at the Durban Art Gallery (DAG).
APRIL sees the opening of Restless Spirit, Thami Jali’s solo exhibition of remarkable etchings and silk-screens on paper at the Durban Art Gallery (DAG).
DAG curator, Jenny Stretton said, “It is an important exhibition, not simply because it shows off a major artist who just happens to be from Clermont, Durban. Thami Jali’s story is so much about South Africa’s recent past, the fractured nation, its diverse cultures, seemingly endless journeys and the hunger for an authentic artistic home.
“Watching a critic trying to categorise Jali can be a lot of fun, he’s a slippery fish and may well classify himself as an accomplished gumboot dancer, if pushed into a corner. This is why the exhibition is a must see. Jali’s life and work speaks of the pain and triumph of South Africa in a way that is outside of the political porridge often dished up as art and struggle.”
Stretton describes Jali’s work as intensely human and direct while maintaining a complex intellectual underpinning.
“There is nothing you can tell Jali about the cold reality of the street, but he renders work about these grim realities in a way that is optimistic and emotionally balanced. The work is beautiful, it buzzes in a way that marks it as current, contemporary, demanding the viewer’s attention.
“This exhibition chronicles an interesting life: it’s Local Boy Makes Good but it also details the history of many institutions and people in the art community who have both helped to form Jali as an artist and fallen under his influence.
“His search for an aesthetic he could truly call his own took him from Durban’s Clermont township to Zululand, Nelspruit, Rorke’s Drift, Johannesburg, London, New Delhi and finally back to Durban to the house he grew up in.
“He is called a renaissance man by those who have watched his career. Jali is multi-talented, equally at home behind the wheel or at a canvas. But it’s the way this artist has interrogated South African society that informs his vision.
“He has been a voice of the man in the street, eschewed popular politics for artistic integrity, and given back to his students far more than he ever took,” she said.
The exhibition opens at the Durban Art Gallery on Tuesday 29 April at 6pm to Sunday 20 July. Contact Jenny Stretton on 031 332 7286.
