Jeremy Wafer

Jeremey Wafer (b. 1953) is a South African sculptor and printmaker from KwaZulu-Natal. He obtained his BA in Fine Art from the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg in 1979, followed by a BA Honours in Art History in 1980, an MA in Fine Art in 1987, and a PhD in 2016 from the University of the Witwatersrand. He has taught in the Fine Art Department of the Technikon Natal (now the Durban University of Technology) and at the School of Arts of the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was appointed Professor of Fine Art in 2011. He retired from Wits in 2020. Wafer is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, notably the Standard Bank National Drawing Prize in 1987 and the Sasol Wax Art Award in 2006. His work featured on the South African Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Wafer has exhibited in South Africa and internationally, his work is represented in the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, the South African National Gallery, the Johannesburg Art Gallery as well as in many other museum, private and corporate collections. Wafer’s work explores place, both in terms of its politics, particularly working to engage with South Africa’s issues around land a territory that stems from the country’s social, cultural and political history, as well as its poetics. He particularly looks at themes of location and dislocation, possession and dispossession through his work. He often utilizes site-specific work as well as aerial photography and mapping to activate his work further. In addition to his work in sculpture and printmaking, Wafer has also been known to make use of drawing, photography and video. Jeremy Wafer collaborated with David Krut Workshop in 2011 on two prints that have been featured in various group exhibitions. He was also the subject of the third TAXI Art book published by David Krut Publishing in 2001, the first major monograph published about his work. Wafer is a prolific sculptor and printmaker who has been recognised both locally and internationally. In 2004, he was a Merit Award winner at the Brett Kebble Art Awards. He was awarded a fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Centre in Italy in 2001, and has participated in artist residencies in Melbourne and Amsterdam. He has been commissioned for the design of a Memorial Wall for the Gugu Dlamini Park in central Durban, and sculptures for the Arabella Sheraton Hotel in Cape Town. Wafer's sensitivity to organic forms and objects is evident both in his sculptures as well as his prints. He explores ideas of land, borders and territory using site-specific work, aerial photography and mapping references.