Rirhandzu Vermeulen

Untitled

 This piece is a part of a body of work that is initially inspired by my analyzation and personal experience of living simultaneously in rural Hoedspruit, Limpopo and urban, metropolitan Johannesburg, Gauteng. Together, pieces in this body of work – which are all self-portraits - visualise my entanglement with the different values, morals, ideologies, rhythms etc. each geographic location respectively carries and operates at. My navigation of the above mentioned is essentially portrayed as mythologizing the self through a kind of aesthetic contortion in order to somehow assimilate (or not) to said respective values, morals, ideologies, rhythms. The work is limitless and begins to quietly play with and challenge a variety of issues such as gender representation, women’s autonomy, feminism under capitalism and patriarchy, power play etc.; this is done through subliminal, contrasting and subtle symbolism seen in each piece and all together as one body of work.