Colours of Wakefulness by Ashraf Jamal

Colour as palette has peremptorily served its aesthetic demands in South African art but, substantialy, remained peripheral. The reason for this is that South African art has consciously or unconsciously been mired in responsibility. As a consequence SA art has damagingly deviated itself from the reckonings of art expression. So much so that SA art has come to define itself according to the received dictates of “justice,” “rightness,” “propriety.” SA art, therefore, has been declamatory.

While the process made sense as an idea it bizarrely failed to access that protest and outrage in the realm of colour. Why this was the case was perhaps because SA art was driven by the will to make a statement. The need was precise. But the need in the context of this debate was not sufficient. Why, because the monochromatic dominated SA aesthetics. By this I suggest that an overdetermined morality consumed the complexities of living here, and, as a consequence, how we have told our stories has damagingly inhibited the very rub of complexity. Aesthetics as a reactive and preordained energy has diverted the concern with colour-as-palette in this country. This has everything to do with how the perceptual register has been constructed, how we as South Africans have been tutored to see the world.