
Troy Makaza
Today's Problems, 2017
Silicone infused paint
110 x 90 cm
The medium is very intimately connected to my work on a number of levels. First of all, it combines a traditional art medium with a novel one. This is something...
The medium is very intimately connected to my work on a number of levels. First of all, it combines a traditional art medium with a novel one. This is something that I am really conscious of doing as a contemporary Zimbabwean artist - bringing tradition with contemporary practice. Secondly, this medium allows me to move between sculpture and painting and to disrupt categories set up by people who are not us, so in a way, it is me asserting my right as an artist to determine how I am seen and not allow myself or my content to be categorized. My subject matter is equally fluid moving between abstraction and figuration because neither category is, in fact, pure and the formality of these definitions don't make sense to me. - Troy Mazaka
"Troy Makaza’s installations in the Camo series show acrylic paint changed into a gluey medium resembling an industrial textile – plastic and hardy in texture pinned and draped across the walls. This morphed medium resembles a people constantly reshaping itself to acclimatise and evolve according to its often tumultuous environment. It shows the modification of the water-based acrylic into a hardier, binding substance with the ability to stick to itself. The series consists of smaller versions of a work, each one, as if dependent on the sticky nature of its medium, slowly edging further up the wall – jeopardised by years of stifling political oppression and economic hardships, it shows a nation of people adapting and fusing to one another in a desperate attempt to grow." "Heedful hands in Zimbabwe", Zeitz Mocaa exhibition review by Pamela Bentley for ArtAfrica magazine, published Jan 10, 2019.
"Troy Makaza’s installations in the Camo series show acrylic paint changed into a gluey medium resembling an industrial textile – plastic and hardy in texture pinned and draped across the walls. This morphed medium resembles a people constantly reshaping itself to acclimatise and evolve according to its often tumultuous environment. It shows the modification of the water-based acrylic into a hardier, binding substance with the ability to stick to itself. The series consists of smaller versions of a work, each one, as if dependent on the sticky nature of its medium, slowly edging further up the wall – jeopardised by years of stifling political oppression and economic hardships, it shows a nation of people adapting and fusing to one another in a desperate attempt to grow." "Heedful hands in Zimbabwe", Zeitz Mocaa exhibition review by Pamela Bentley for ArtAfrica magazine, published Jan 10, 2019.
Provenance
First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe 2017
Exhibitions
Primo Marella Gallery | The Black Sphinx II: From Morocco to Madagascar | May 2018 - September 2018.Zeitz Mocaa Museum | FIVE BHOBH – PAINTING AT THE END OF AN ERA | July 2018 - April 2019.
Publications
Mouna Anjjar, Maria Giovanna Mancini, Paula Nascimento, Marie Deparis-Yafil | "The Black Sphinx II: From Morocco to Madagascar" | Primo Marella Gallery | June 2018.Pamela Bentley | "Heedful hands in Zimbabwe, A quiet, constant and resourceful resistance" | Art Africa Magazine | January 10, 2018 .
"Five Bhobh – Painting At the End of an Era" | Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa | September 2018.
Adenike Cosgrove | "Collector Spotlight - Serge Tiroche, Israel" | ÌMỌ̀ DÁRA | May 12, 2022.