Faith 47 recently spent a few days painting in Durban, South Africa, as part of the cultural program of the 25th World Congress on Architecture, UIA2014 Durban. For this event, she will be painting six walls on four of the supporting columns of the main freeway overpass adjacent to the Early Morning Market in Warwick. Recently, she completed three of these walls, with another three to be painted in August.
For this project, the South African artist chose to paint portraits of actual traders in the area. The market itself is a hub of transport and informal trade, incorporating taxi ranks, buses, Nyama market, Muti market, lime, Mphepo, Indian food market, and the Sangoma markets. Known for her figurative work mixed with the use of symbols, text, patterns, folk and spiritual elements, Faith47’s imagery was a great choice for the area. Using her familiar black and golden paint, she created portraits of regular people that gravitate around this market. Without any significant elements that would reveal their background or story, the artist’s idea was to trigger finding the “great wealth of stories hidden within each of us.” With the activities of these markets being essential for the local economy, the murals are urban altars dedicated to the people that work and live around the wild and chaotic, energy bursting area of Warwick triangle.
Discuss Faith47 here.
