Senzo Shabangu has been working at David Krut Print Workshop, Parkwood, on a series of new monotypes with hand painting. These new works, along with new linocuts created for the Transference exhibiton at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, will be exhibited at Arts on Main during August 2012, following new editions by Sean Slemon. These works by Shabangu are notable for their expansion and refinement of the artist’s vocabulary and choice of symbols, while retaining their roots in the city of Johannesburg and the lives of the those inhabitants who are marginalised by the dady-to-day pressure of the city. The colour red dominates these works, more so than previous bodies of work, and opens debate around the culturally-relative meanings and interpretations of colour. In these works Shabangu is using red in reaction to the culture and society into which he was born where red clothing and personal ornamentation is reserved exclusively for high-ranking members of the Christian church, and naturally occuring forms of red are seen as denoting experience and knowledge.
Shabangu worked in collaboration with printmaking-intern Kelsey Brod.