Steve Bandoma the first young black artist at NIROX FOUNDATION



Steve Bandoma is a Congolese performance and visual artist who has been in residence at NIROX for the past month. He has produced a compelling body of mixed media works on paper which he will show in the Coolroom Studio at NIROX.
This is a unique opportunity to view the work in production and to engage with the artist in the relaxed environment of his studio on the banks of the Blauwbankspruit River.

Bandoma uses water color, ink and clippings from contemporary glossy publications to interrogate the excesses and imbalances of the contemporary world, with exuberance, intelligence and a refined aesthetic which subverts stereotypical expectations of the African artist in a post-colonial world… The result is a visually dynamic reconstruction and analysis of a sometimes meaningless contemporary world overtaken with images and objects of excessive desire and affluence at the expense of the environment and humanity.



Bandoma questions the limits of his world - the physical magazines that overwhelm us; the huge effort and cost that delivers them to readers who scan them superficially and then stack them never to be considered again. Steve breathes new life into them. Deploying their own excess in the expression of his challenge against their validity - Provocatively addressing the politics, religious profusion, global environmental issues, racial differences and consumerism.




Punishment, from lost paradise, 2011, installation, variable














Steve Bandoma at his studio.



Rachel
Curator in training
NIROX Foundation
0834348541