Tshepang Mahasha

tshepangmahasha97@gmail.com

‘BOTLE BO NA LE DIBELEBEJANE' (All That Looks Beautiful Doesn’t Mean It’s Beautiful)

This artwork work consists of the repetition process with materials. Articulated as minimalistic sculptural forms and text. The work looks at prostitution in South Africa and its affiliations with occultism practices involving corrupt government, corporate companies and Pentecostal churches.

The text piece highlights the contemporary prostitution industry in South Africa known as ‘‘The Blessi & Blessa’’ (The Blesser and Blessee). ‘This is a form of transactional sex in which older rich men ‘‘The Blesser’’ tend to entice young women ‘‘Blessees’’ with money, expensive gifts and a funded luxury lifestyle in return for sexual favours’. This extraordinary form of prostitution afflicts South Africa with deplorable destruction amidst crimes such as rape and human trafficking. The end result of many ‘Blessees’ is that they become ritual-victims who signed to a contract that had a hidden agenda which often results in death.

My sculptural works refer to the objectification of women in South Africa, women whom, if they are promiscuous are often referred to as inanimate object such as ‘Chewing Gum’ known as ‘Cheppies’. I have made a series of small scale sculptural objects using gum and wax that have an associative connection with the text and its subject. The sculptures are submerged in liquid in domestic glass preservation jars. These colourful small scale, inoffensive materials enable an incongruous relationship to the text they relate to.