Notes

Johannes Phokela, who lived in London for seventeen years, used the unusual technique of oil sketching when he painted these seven portraits that make up The Collar Series. Such a sketch is done on a sheet of acetate, similar to that used by architects for their drawings, on which oil paint, thinned with turpentine, is quickly applied, usually with a piece of tissue paper. The result is a luminous glow emanating from the image that cannot be achieved by any more traditional means. As inspiration for these portraits, Phokela referenced the conventions of the seventeenth-century Duth portraiture, such as those of Jan van Riebeeck and his wife Maria de la Quellerie, both with elaborate lace collars, in the castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. In addition, he looked to photographs in newspapers of academics receiving honorary doctorates from South African universities, as well as famous spiritual leaders with religious insignia of various kinds and ritual garments with elaborate collars. What is so striking about these portraits, however, is the fact that the sitters are all cyphers: none of their faces are visible. Anybody could don such a pose, or wear such regalia as these seven sitters.

Exhibited

South African Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African Art and the Archive, 2013

Literature

Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African Art and the Archive (2013). Illustrated in colour on pages 129-132.