Notes

After three years of diploma studies at the FUBA Academy under Durant Sihlali, Johannes Phokela went to the United Kingdom where he obtained a Master's Degree in Fine Arts at the Royal School of Arts in 1993. Like many struggling artists in London before him (Robert Hodgins comes to mind), Phokela often took refuge against the winter cold in the National Gallery. He was particularly struck there by one of Edouard Manet's versions of The Execution of Maximilian (1867). Phokela replicated this famous work, and painted various versions too. The first, titled The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways, was exhibited at the Standard Bank Gallery in 2009 after Phokela won the prestigious Young Artist's Award that year. In Manet's Maximilian (which itself was based on Goya's Third of May 1808 from 1814), the Emperor is absent, having been removed with a section of canvas for political reasons. Phokela, however, brings Maximilian back to life, albeit through a ghostlike shape.