Staying Alive

Platbos forest, where this series is situated, is an ancient, southernmost indigenous forest of Africa. It is a small remnant of the majestic forests that once populated Southern Africa millions of years ago. As the climate heated up – much of the forest area died out and, in the Cape Region, was replaced with the hardy fynbos. Later on, about 200 000 years ago, when an ice age made much of the world inhabitable, the forests and caves on the southwestern tip of Africa, provided shelter to survivors, the Khoisan, who are now being recognised as the ancestors of humankind. The world’s oldest art object (70 000 years old), an incised piece of ochre, has been found in Blombos cave along the same ancient coastline as Platbos forest. The survival of Platbos forest is a biological mystery, it has no water source but survives off mists from the nearby sea. It a living memory of evolution, both our own as humans and that of the plant kingdom. It is from this “source” energy I draw my inspiration.

I place myself in this primordial ambient of the forest where the matriarch of the milkwood trees is estimated to be a thousand years old.

My art speaks to the future as well as the past and images sacred connectedness. My work expresses the embodied soul and its mergence with the soulscapes of nature. I enter into sublime states in order to find the harmony between human form and its context - nature. I am imaging the sacredness of home, both within our bodies and the environment.

In the “civilised” world we mostly experience human impact on the landscape, there is virtually no area left untouched. I am giving the land and its growth agency to transform my flesh. My corporeality dissolves and the landscape is allowed to penetrate and add dimension to my human form.

 

In my work, I am both photographer and subject. The voyeur is eliminated. I am able to achieve within myself an inward gaze, a lack of self-consciousness and most importantly a freedom from the manipulating eye of another. I feel I am expressing female essence in its pure presence. In this primal place, within myself and the forest, my inner-dialogue emerges through gesture.

 

My technique for creating images uses extended moments in time recorded in location. There is no post-production or photoshop involved. The works become an exploration of instants of being in space, capturing planned and chance interaction between human form and landscape.