When imagining flowers, politics is probably the last thing that comes to mind. Flower paintings are associated with affluent housewives and gentle oil paint brushes. But in his recent exhibition at Gallery Momo in Johannesburg, artist Khaya Witbooi presented a fresh take on the subject. Under the title History Begins with a Garden, he relocates flowers from their context as agents of escapism into hardcore reality.
Probably the most dominant work in the exhibition is The Plant is a Flag. In a colourful mix of oil paint and spray-paint stencils, Witbooi depicts an astronaut with a plant in his hand. Around him, floating, is a surreal jamboree of pigs, a ship, statue, skull, an electric fence sign, a bird and, of course, flowers. What looks like a psychedelic collage is a fascinating history lesson, with a long list of footnotes on acid.
The exhibition’s curator, Mariella Franzoni, explains: "The main character in the painting is Jan van Riebeeck, depicted as the first man on the moon.
In his hand, instead of a flag, is a wild almond. In 1659, the Dutch colonialists used this indigenous plant as a hedge to prevent the Khoikhoi and their livestock from accessing settlers’ vegetable gardens in the Cape. This hedge became the first sign of segregation and land dispossession in SA.
"Around the astronaut are pigs, who were fed by the settlers with the almond fruit; the Voortrekker Monument, transformed into a space rocket; a Dutch vessel of the 17th century; the statue of Cecil John Rhodes and Tweety bird, which references the use of canaries in the British mines as gas detectors."
Witbooi and Franzoni conducted eclectic research of archives, poetry books and personal experiences, gathering information relating to the theme of local gardens that he translated into visual images.
He says the exhibition was educational, a retelling of mainstream history in a less linear, more critical, intuitive and appealing way.
His strength is multilayered images — paintings that tell stories slowly to people with time to look, listen, think and imagine. It is the kind of art to sit with and stare at for a while until connections between the components are made.
"He layers images as a way of building history," says Franzoni. The collection can be turned into a textbook for high school pupils, she says.
Witbooi says: "Our schooling system does very little to give a background to understanding our culture. This exhibition is a syllabus. It took a long time to compose and it also takes time to unpack it.
"The exhibition opens the doors to explore various narratives related to the garden. The formation of our country starts from the point of view of a garden. Our brain interprets it as natural beauty, but there is violence in it.
"Violence does not only come in one form, it is like an onion – it needs to be peeled.
"This kind of work has anger that makes you want to find answers. The issue of flowers is directly related to land. It is very political," Witbooi says.
Franzoni says the exhibition’s title is ironical, questioning the notion that African history began with colonialism.
Gardening is not only the preserve of the colonial class, Witbooi says. "That is only the short story. What did people eat before? Someone had to plant food for the cattle.
"I’m not a historian, but I can tell you that people knew how to make things for themselves."
In the work entitled Protea is Not a Flower, Witbooi references classic floral paintings in European art as domestic still-life compositions. Only, the vase holding the flowers is replaced with a bullet.
"We challenge the use of flowers as means of depoliticising and making things innocent," says Franzoni. "The artwork borrows its name from Don Mattera’s 1983 poem, which criticised the use of the protea to mask political tension during apartheid," she says.
His reputation is growing steadily in the local art world after he became known as the artist who introduced graffiti into fine-art galleries
The work is spiced with graffiti tags, which are sprayed on most of the works in the exhibition as an aesthetic thread. Witbooi merges the outdoor masculine aesthetic of street art with the domestic and feminine subject of flowers.
He also uses female figures as main characters, such as Anna de Kooning, a celebrated historic figure as a freed slave who owned land in the Cape.
Stencils and spray paint are Witbooi’s signature.
His reputation is growing steadily in the local art world after he became known as the artist who introduced graffiti into fine-art galleries.
"There was a point when photography was outside of fine art," he says. "The act of finding a medium to express your unique voice — that is fine art. I use stencils as my voice. Fine art is not a closed book, it extends and grows through the people who add new media to it."
He created the exhibition during a three-month residency at Gallery Momo — sleeping, working and exhibiting in the same space. Ironically, he was based in the gardener’s cottage on the property.
Witbooi met Franzoni at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town when she came from Barcelona as a PhD research fellow. "We worked hand in hand and I translated the research information into visual language," he says.
She says they shared a childlike enthusiasm working on this exhibition. "I even participated manually in the making of the works. Since we were running late, I had to learn how to work with stencils and spray paint."
As the exhibition closes its doors, almost all the works have been sold.
The positive financial outcome to the creators and the gallery also signals the end of this body of work as a public history book. The works will be scattered into collectors’ homes, offices and storage rooms. The garden will be dismantled into individual flowers.
Witbooi and Franzoni have prepared a three-dimensional online tour of the works at my.matterport.com.
They are continuing to create new works with this theme for a second exhibition.
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