Welgemeend August Art Month - 2019

25 alchemy, ancient Chinese philosophy, and the recollection of an Italian Renaissance artist, all set against the background of a brooding South African landscape. Pinker’s own Intonaromuri – the whirr and whizz of Catherine wheels, the snap, crackle and pop of sparklers and Roman candles – are suggestive of the revolutionary climate and political volatility in South Africa at the time. Pinker does not illustrate the political unrest and violence in South Africa by painting burning tyres, clenched fists or policemen with batons – the imagery that belongs to television news and press photography. Pinker’s juxtapositions of a series of signs and symbols are incisive explorations of who and what we are in the face of upheaval and disruption. This is the work of an artist at the height of his aesthetic exploration – both formally and philosophically. This painting is an incisive and meaningful exploration of our dilemmas in the face of disruption and upheaval. This painting is as relevant to our own time/s as it was to Pinker e il suo tempo in Sudafrica in the 1980s. Deon Viljoen July 2019 Marinetti (e il suo tempo) in Graaff-Reinet (detail)