PRESS RELEASE
GREAT RIFT
Mar 19 – Apr 19, 2017
‘great rift’
“My mark making has been captivated by Africa’s artists; pre-historic and contemporary.
The animist tribes compel me to repeatedly return to the Omo Valley located in that part of the Great Rift Valley lying in the Southern reaches of Ethiopia.
It is the intoxicating visual overload that is the imagery of authentic Africa; people adorned with designs so ancient and mysterious, a living art form, having inspired and informed fashion and the visual arts globally.
What I search for is the most authentic blue print of contemporary tribal Africa; material reflecting traditions maintained over thousands of years. The material is pure, not contrived in a studio setting, but embracing all the rawness of the moment, regardless of what has defined the interaction.
But by visiting the Omo Valley tribes repeatedly, I am bearing witness to a freeze frame on cultural obsolescence as a result of Anthropocene man, as he invades their lives both literally and metaphorically. In so doing, the bravery of the tribes of the Great Rift Valley who have to make painful transformations through loss of tribal land and cultural traditions split the fault line. ‘great rift’.”
Robert Slingsby
