Sandile Zulu
Lines of origin
Lines of origin concerns the psychogenesis of an impulse and a sensation. The work is a playful autonomous/automatic wet string and fire line drawing, tracing and investigating the co-ordination of sensation, intellectual and nervous activity. It was conceived as an exercise in the integration and interaction of the conscious and unconscious elements of the brain.
The double-sided line is created by laying down wet string onto wallpaper and then using a blowtorch to burn around it. The two sides of the line concern the relation between inner and outer worlds … dialectics of subjectivity and objectivity. The line is thus historicised and reflects our desire to reconnect with the ancient energy that we carry within ourselves – to reconnect with natural energy by way of elementary and elemental forms and processes.
I use the elements – fire, water, air and earth – in almost all of my work; they are both material and immaterial. Fire and air come together in the process of blowtorching, which involves controlled degrees of heat and flame applied to the surface over a period of time. In this work I used strips of vinyl and fibreglass wallpapers. These are fragile substances with pure beauty qualities, which parallel the fragility of natural and human existence. I sourced the paper from a company specialising in papers of different strengths and qualities; the ones I chose were very delicate and as a result burnt very quickly. This meant that, unlike with canvas where I need to use a big, powerful flame, I was able to work in my studio rather than in an outside environment.
The process of drawing is playful yet deeply engaging. It is meditative, contemplative, pleasurable, relaxing, therapeutic and cathartic.
Biography
Sandile Zulu was born in Ixopo in 1960 and lives in Johannesburg. He has a BA Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand (1993) and a Diploma in Fine Art from Rorke’s Drift Art School in KwaZulu-Natal (1982). He received a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship award in 2000. He held a solo exhibition at the October Gallery in London in June 2005. Recent group exhibitions include Mixed belongings: Eight contemporary African makers at the Crafts Council Galleries, London (2005); Personal Affects: Power and poetics in contemporary South African art at the Museum for African Art, New York (2004); and Tremor at the Palais des Beaux Arts, Charleroi, Belgium.
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