UJ Arts & Culture, a Division of Institutional Advancement, proudly hosts Robert Hamblin’s exhibition of photographic imagery, entitled The Colony (Phase II – Occupy). The exhibition opens at the UJ Art Gallery on Wednesday 8 October 2014 at 18h30 for 19h00. This installation of images consists of 260 depictions of gold reflections in ocean water, 260 days of gold price graphs and a 365 day graph of the ocean tide.
Hamblin’s new meditative work, inspired by the ebb and flow of the ocean, was conceived in the Dalebrook tidal pool near Kalk Bay which he calls Bethesda, a name associated with grace and healing. He has observed the price of gold and other stocks on the world markets since August 2013 and became interested in how these very emotional models of human interaction determines the present and future shape of his life.
In a tenacious daily ritual of pondering capitalism’s power structures over a period 260 days, the number of working days in the Western monetary system, he found not only the brilliance of precious metals, minerals and stones reflected in the tides, but also a fluid vehicle to voice his interest in the Occupy Wall Street movement. This movement protests the corruption of capital without a campaign for an alternative economic model.
“Looking at Capital and money meets my continuing interrogation of masculinity, patriarchy and how that necessarily fits body and identity. I look at workdays, concepts of capital and the ordinary man’s integration of those concepts into daily life. In this case the ordinary man is an artist who looks at water and ideas of masculine constructs everyday”, says Hamblin
According to abstract painter Nel Erasmus, one of Hamblin’s mentors, “nature teems with subtle signs of links, correspondences, relationships and tensions that can be found anywhere and anytime. To see the valid connections between nature’s form and our lives amounts to insight. Robert Hamblin’s Colony works are on this great road”
For more information see:
#roberthamblinthecolony
