Stone Fields, 2025
Charcoal
82 cm x 82 cm
Artist’s Statement
My practice grows out of memory, storytelling, and the landscapes that shaped me in Mpumalanga. Working mainly in charcoal on 300g Fabriano paper, I use black and white to focus on light, texture, and contrast. Living with colour blindness taught me to notice details others might overlook, and to find creative potential in every limitation.
Stone Fields begins with after-school soccer – the games we played in streets, empty lots, and places never designed for sport. Two monumental stone faces stand at the edges, watching. Between them, small figures chase a ball across open ground. The stones feel like memory itself: heavy, fragmented, worn smooth by time. The children are movement and improvisation; I leave their faces hidden and the lines rough because memory never sits still. It erases and revises as we go. The rocks become the realities that shape us: displacement, survival, the vulnerability of childhood, and the weight of rural life. The empty spaces between them carry their own weight. I leave them open so viewers can bring their own stories in.
Charcoal suits this process. Its delicate, erasable nature mirrors how memories shift and blur. I work by instinct and revising slowly, much like telling a story. I don’t hide mistakes. The marks remain, showing the human side of making. These works aren’t conclusions. They’re questions, and an invitation to pause and notice what’s often overlooked.
