Stories in Full Color: Kealeboga Tlalang’s Residency at Juxtaposition Arts

On September 24th, Juxtaposition Arts welcomed an artist from far, far away — Kealeboga Tlalang. The young artist came all the way from South Africa to put on his first U.S. solo show here in Minneapolis. Tlalang has long been familiar with his talent, discovering art at the age of three, and was helped along by a proximity to the art of his sculptor uncle, Utukile Luas Tlalang. Art was not only ever-present but also a means of survival for a young child with no money, helping him pay for school lunches in his early years. After discovering an affinity for mathematics and pursuing that for some time in his university years, he ended up returning to art. Undoubtedly Tlalang’s long relationship with his talent and his work makes him a perfect fit for a residency at JXTA, not only for an exhibition but for participating in JXTA Lab’s art-making workshops, where he has shared his techniques with young JXTA apprentices.

The works Tlalang brought with him to hang on JXTA’s walls are mostly large, cleanly-hewn portraits. When you see the promotional images online, they look digitally produced because each larger-than-life face Tlalang depicts is made up of tiny squares of color, their hair matte black, their expressions brimming with realism. In real life, however, it’s striking to discover that each portrait is actually mostly made up of collaged paper. Each square of color on the faces of Tlalang’s subjects are all actually small pieces of paper, layered with a striking precision that still creates a subtle effect. When looking at them up close, each face is a rainbow, full of texture. Take several steps back and each face is glossy with rich shadows and highlights, smooth contours. I don’t know how, but I feel as if somehow Tlalang’s love of math has to have some hand in delivering the feeling of reality to these images.

 

African happy soul, mixed media collage, 47x47”

Smooth lines of color form the smiling lips, warm cheeks, and mirthful eyes on the youthful portrait that is African happy soul. The face in Born Here is full and soft, a very young child with tendrilled hair made up of matte black paper and random blocks of cut out text. One such block reads SA’S BIGGEST. The child’s eyes are dark shining pools of color within the riot of color that is the face. There is a looseness in the layout of the collage pieces, a scattered-ness, just as much as there is a tightness, and this balance of order and disarray brings it all together. Everything comes together gently and cohesively, yielding the expressive subjects lining the walls.

When looking closer, you also realize that the background of most of the images are collaged as well. These off white, fuzzy backgrounds are made up of black and white newspaper clippings. The fact that Tlalang chose to fill each background with scattered, layered newspaper text is interesting because, though it provides an aesthetically neutral background — a blank — that background is filled with words. It is tempting to look closely at these clippings for some potential context surrounding the portraits, but one gleans nothing from them. They are too fragmented. It seems Tlalang would rather we look to the faces of his subjects for meaning. It is in the faces, so precisely aligned, made of fragments too, where we are meant to find meaning and cohesion and stories.

 

Self portrait, mixed media collage, 47 x 47”

Tlalang’s self-professed focus is on human expression and the tendency of a face to tell so much. The colorful portraits in this exhibition speak to the vibrancy of people. Tlalang’s subjects, with all their fascinating color and movement, are not only more eye-catching than their textual fragmented background (perhaps representative of the world and all its background noise?) but more comprehensive for their color and movement. Even subjects with more obscure faces — such as the ghostly Beyond, featuring a child’s turned-away face that is chalky and distant, or My Thoughts, with its harried brushstrokes and a cloud of cut-outs circling a round, vague head — pull the viewer in with their uninhibited color and fluidity. These images feel just as real and compelling and human as the rest of Tlalang’s work, marking his affinity for capturing human emotion.

 

My Thoughts, mixed media collage

Tlalang’s personable work is truly a wonder to appreciate up close, and there’s plenty of time to get down to Juxtaposition Arts to do so. The exhibition will be up on their gallery walls at 2007 Emerson Avenue North until Nov. 10th.

 

Images courtesy of the author and artist.