Paintings serve a different role. They are valuable as records and retrospective insights into historic events. Guernica springs to mind. While living in Paris my frequent visits to the Louvre usually wound up in my favourite room which housed, amongst others, Delacroix’s Liberty at the Barricades (1830) and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa (1819). I used to dream of doing a huge freestanding canvas of a grand political nature to emulate these masterpieces. Now the opportunity had come.

 

My painting – PASSIVE RESISTANCE (1994-1999) – pays tribute to the way artists fight. They do not resort to violence and war. Their weapon is the mind. There is a synergy between this modus operandi and the way the transition of power in South Africa played out in its final, formal stage. The painting pays tribute to both. As I see it both De Klerk and Mandela, being human, were flawed, and both had their backs against a wall. Both were well poised for war; a powerful army on the one hand and numbers on the other. But neither had a proclivity for genocide. Although many lives were lost on route, in its final stage the long struggle for democracy played out in a systematic, peaceful fashion. These two men fought with their minds, like artists do. They were applauded throughout the world for this unusual achievement, being honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize. They opted for a transition of power unlike that depicted by Delacroix; Liberty rising up above slayed bodies in a scene of death and destruction. Delacroix’s subject was the 1830 civic revolution. After three days of bloody fighting the King was overthrown, a constitutional monarchy was instated and over 1 000 people left dead.

 

In PASSIVE RESISTANCE, Liberty, a take on Delacroix’s famous image, leads an expressive and joyful “army” of respected Johannesburg theatre personalities. I asked them to dress in ways that were meaningful to them. Some wore costumes from productions they treasured. John Kani wore his impressive red gown from Othello. Others wore costumes with cultural significance.

 

In the left bottom hand of the composition is the figure of Thandi Klaasen, who is holding a dead or injured figure, symbolising the suffering of women in any revolution. On the right are the figures of Sello Maake and Nick Boraine, brandishing weapons. Nick is cross-dressed, a phenomenon which occurs in extreme anarchic situations in Africa. Bustiers and Mickey Mouse masks become popular garb as taking life becomes an anarchistic theatrical sport. These two figures illustrate the male propensity for war, the thrill of violence and killing. The three children running through their midst are reminiscent of an iconic photograph taken by the Bang-Bang Club photographer Ken Oosterbroek, which captured a woman and child running for safety across the firing line of two warring factions, protesters and police. Except these three children are not running for safety, as there is no threat of violence from the mind-warriors.