MANTIS PRAISE
by Garth Erasmus
The Mantis Praise Series are like journal musings made by a technique, which the artist calls 'wax resist etching', in wax, acrylic and ink on paper. Each work is created by drawing and painting in layers, scratching into the surfaces, and scraping away parts of layers, and layering and scratching again and again.
As Erasmus explains:
"Mantis Praise as a conceptual base for my work started as far back as 1992. The works shown here are part of a large series of mostly small-scale wax-resist etchings and intaglio works, which I began in 1996 and on which I am still working. These drawings began as a means of personal investigation after my father's death but subsequently became a channel through which to delve into the burning issues of ancestry, heritage and identity. In other words, Mantis Praise is a process, a work-in-progress, a personal journey in images, closely linked to the post-1994 mood of national healing and cultural awakening after the sleep of Apartheid.
My work process consists of much over-layering of paint and images, mimicking, in reverse, the archeological process of 'un-layering' in order to discover. Khoisan cave paintings often show images painted on top of older images by subsequent generations of cave painters, and I have used this process of working-over as a symbol of the destructive events of South African history in the gradual 'obliteration' of this country's aboriginal nation.
In the Mantis Praise Series I want to sensitise my Khiosan heritage in the quest of personal healing and self-discovery. The works also exist in relation to my experiences as a musician and fellow artist in the performance group called the Khoi Khonnexion (with Jethro Louw and Glen Arendse)."
Why Mantis?
In trying to make a connection to his Khoi ancestry, Garth Erasmus chose the Praying Mantis as his symbol for this series of works. The fact that the Mantis is both an everyday insect with which most contemporary Africans have contact at some point, and has important symbolic meaning within historic Khoi culture makes this quiet insect-being a fascinating symbol for the artist.
