Intimations

Intimations Is a group show focusing on small scale works by nine artists from past solo exhibitions we have presented in our first five years of Sakhile&Me.

The title of the exhibition draws from intimation ('giving a subtle hint' or 'hinting at') and the shared spelling between intimate (hint at) and intimate (referring to intimacy) . Depending on where you place emphasis, the two may be intertwined and smallness or small hints may conjure or imply some level of intimacy. Through this malleable meaning, intimate, an indirect, subtle suggestion or hint, connects to the small works in that they offer an entry-point to not only the artists’ larger scale works but also the sensibility in each respective artist’s practice. In a similar vein, small scale works often require the viewer to move in closer to view and hopefully appreciate the details in each work. With Intimations we would like to employ this sentiment as a kind of "seedling" or "invitation" to explore and expand one’s viewing and experience of the artists’ work.

Many of the exhibitions we have curated in these first five years of Sakhile&Me have held space for, and in some cases asked visitors to participate in, a kind of intimate act (to reveal something of themselves as they seek to uncover the work and/or the practice buttressing each artist’s work).

As a curatorial concept Intimations also grew out of my readings (and book review skimmings) of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a speculative fiction first published in 1993 but set at the beginning of 2024, that follows a young woman, Lauren Olamina, who has the capacity to feel others’ pain as she herself experiences displacement from her home.

With this background and intention, the exhibition includes a sculpture by Nnenna Okore from our inaugural exhibition Embodiment, small acrylic, graphite and pastel works by Osi Audu which were part of Wetin be Dis?, ink and silk drawings from Ghizlane Sahli’s solo exhibition Histoires de Tripes, multi-media works from Kevin Demery’s show Menagerie, fabric and yarn text-sewn works from Owanto’s solo Flowers, Mbali Dhlamini’s ingido drawings with organic indigo plant and wax on paper from Go Bipa Mpa Ka Mabele, Sekai Machache’s series Invocation from her show Divination, Mario Joyce’s paintings with archival collage from Gravity, and Larry Bonćhaka’s recent and site-specific installation of Auntie Dei Dei dolls imbedded into the permanent gallery library collection which formed part of the artist’s Denk-mal: Relics in Crisis exhibition in the fall of 2023.