Garth Erasmus (born April 12, 1956, in

Uitenhage Uitenhage ( ; ), officially renamed Kariega, is a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. Along with the city of Port El ...

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

) is a South African artist who works in several media, including

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

Early life and education

He attended Paterson High School in

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

and later attended a teachers training program at Hewat Training College in Cape Town. He later attended

Rhodes University Rhodes University () is a public research university located in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is one of four universities in the province. Established in 1904, Rhodes University is the prov ...

, and founded the community artists organization Vakalisa Arts Associates in the Cape. He was a participant in the Thupelo Workshop program during the 1980s.

Career

Erasmus' work is represented in several

art collections A museum is distinguished by a collection of often unique objects that forms the core of its activities for exhibitions, education, research, etc. This differentiates it from an archive or library, where the contents may be more paper-based, repla ...

, including the

National Museum of African Art The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the Washington, D.C., United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African ar ...

and the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. Among other formats Erasmus is known for his Resistance Art protesting the

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

regime in South Africa. Beginning as

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

protest art Protest art is the creative works produced by activists and social movements. It is a traditional means of communication, utilized by a cross section of collectives and the state to inform and persuade citizens. Protest art helps arouse base emo ...

his State of Emergency series depicts images of

entrapment Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or an agent of the state induces a person to commit a crime that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.''Sloane'' (1990) 49 A Crim R 270. See also agent prov ...

. Writing in a review of the Smithsonian's

s 2002 exhibition "Encounters With the Contemporary," critic Mark D'Amato called Erasmus' painting The Muse 3 (1995) "a highlight." Erasmus' work uses his

archival research Archival research is a type of research which involves seeking out and extracting evidence from archival records. These records may be held either in collecting institutions, such as libraries and museums, or in the custody of the organization ...

to approach his

Khoisan Khoisan ( ) or () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for the various Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the San people, Sān peo ...

lineage, and drawing on figures from Khoisan

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

. Erasmus has "employed

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

text to comment on the brutal Khoisan history and its impact on present descendants, opening a window onto the way this history has been repressed." He has also provided illustrations for numerous books, including

Nape 'a Motana Nape 'a Motana (born 1945) is a Pretoria-based South African writer, known for the novel ''Fanie Fourie's Lobola'' (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007), which was subsequently made into a Fanie Fourie's Lobola, film of the same name. His play ...

's book of proverbs, published in 2004, as well as a volume of conversations with figures from Cape Town's

District 6 District Six is a place in Cape Town, South Africa. District Six may also refer to: :Government divisions * District 6, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam * District 6 (New York City Council), in the United States * VI District, Turku, in Finland * Dist ...

Sources

* ''10 Years 100 Artists: Art in a Democratic South Africa'', edited by Sophie Perryer, 2004, Bell-Roberts Publishing, Cape Town. * Adams, Keith, and Garth Erasmus. Memory Keepers. Betty's Bay outh Africa: Backbooks Publishers, 2012. Print. * Erasmus, Garth, Siemon Allen, and Julie L. McGee. ''Resoundings: Garth Erasmus & Siemon Allen''. , 2015. Print. * Motana, Nape'a, and Garth Erasmus. Sepedi (northern Sotho) Proverbs. Cape Town: Kwela, 2004. Print.

References

External links

Cultural significance

Extensive biography
1956 births Living people Rhodes University alumni South African artists {{SouthAfrica-artist-stub