Dada Khanyisa
These kits were commissioned by A4 Arts Foundation and the curators Phokeng Tshepo Setai and Alexander Richards on the occasion of Exhibition Match '22, for players, arts workers and publics.
In designing this kit, Dada Khanyisa worked within the constraints of a template uniform and played with the logic of the players' numbers on their shirts as identifying features. Enlarged and necessarily cropped, the respective numbers were rendered illegible, undermining their intended function.
b.1991, Umzimkhulu
“The work I produce is about the black experience,” Dada Khanyisa says. “The weight of the content is based on the currency of memories. I enjoy focusing on what people neglect or take for granted.” The visual stories Khanyisa creates – in murals, sculpture and painting – more often depict scenes of intimacy and levity borrowed from everyday life. Following a self-styled attitude of nakanjani (by whatever means necessary), Khanyisa works across such various mediums as wood, rubber, acrylic paint, and found objects to compose their high-finish, graphic images. The artist’s distinct figuration echoes popular South African comic strips in style and form – indeed, many of Khanyisa’s sculpted paintings appear as comic book panels populated by their many characters. In this way, the artist suggests, they champion an accessible visual language, a street-wise aesthetic that riffs off black South African pop culture and the collective voyeurism social media inspires.
