Notes

Mark Lewis is a South African photographer based in Johannesburg who has worked as a documentary photographer throughout Africa for various international magazines and newspapers such as Newsweek magazine, Sunday Times Magazine (UK), Vogue (UK and Italy), The Face (UK) and Brand Eins magazine (Germany). Lewis is represented in the Wits Art Museum collection by images from his ongoing series dealing with illegal miners in Johannesburg. Lewis is currently working with the writer Tanya Zack on a ten book series of Johannesburg stories that will comprise the box set: ‘Wake Up, this is Joburg!’ published by Fourthwall Books. He has been selected for inclusion in the 2015 Venice Biennale.

This image is from ‘Good Riddance’, book number five, that focuses on informal recyclable waste collectors and depicts a waste picker crossing a landfill site in Rosettenville. He is silhouetted against the early morning light that shines through the wings of the sacred ibis that forage on the dump along with pigeons, egrets and seagulls. The image encapsulates one of Lewis’s ongoing concerns that he describes as ‘the paradox of life in Africa; the co-existence always, of beauty and brutality, greed and generosity’.

Provenance

Donated by the artist