Dada Khanyisa: SKIN + MASKS, Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St.

Dada Khanyisa (b. 1991, South Africa) is a figurative painter whose practice centers images of the everyday people and situations they encounter.

Khanyisa magnifies the mundane, pulling subject matter and themes from what they refer to as “going out” culture. They paint figures who communicate their personalities and social attitudes through their body language. Throughout the work are references to the culture, food, drinks and fashion of the current moment in Cape Town, where Khanyisa lives and works. 

“I try to honor my immediate reality as best as I can,” Khanyisa says. 

What is most important to Khanyisa is the ability to communicate the psychological complexes and unconscious influences governing the behaviors of the people they paint. 

“In my community our problems are not so much racial, because I am around a lot of Black people,” Khanyisa says. “In a community that is not governed by racial laws, when you live with people that look like you, the enemy looks like you, and your friend looks like you. You have to deal with the person and the things that make them who they are. How do you navigate a world where you’re not dealing with people based on prejudices? That’s what I am trying to translate.” 

Humor and symbolism are always prevalent in Khanyisa’s work. For example, their paintings frequently feature common plants whose names contain references that are relevant to the content in the painting. One diptych shows a group of three women in one panel shouting and making hand gestures at a man in another panel. The figures are all leaning on counters and holding drinks as though in a bar. Behind the women is a potted plant known as a Mother In Laws Tongue. Behind the man, who is wearing a t-shirt that says “my pronoun is we,” sits a Prickly Pear cactus. The title of the work is What a Prick. 

Khanyisa builds their surfaces out of sculpted wood and fabric. Drawing from an ever growing library of different types of wood, they use a mixture of different sealants, oil paints, and finishes to convey different types of content, such as facial features, architectural elements, and plant life.