Like all my work, it is an assemblage of found objects, gifts, heirlooms and purchases – the results of a lifetime of collecting in the Victorian ‘cabinet of curiosities’ tradition.

I began working obsessively on this piece in 2017, in the midst of my mid-life crisis. It was a dark time for me, as I sought meaning in God and Krishna and tarot; and in my past. Emerging the Chrysalis of Being proved to be only part one of a grand puzzle… and I am continuing to ‘assemble’ the Tabernacle series today.

The centrepiece of Emerging the Chrysalis of Being is an antique monkey’s skull – My ouma’s earrings serve as obols – framed by warthog’s tusks from a fellow artist and friend. These are surrounded by dried chameleons, as well a chameleon skeleton (that my cousin found in his Stellenbosch garden). My sangoma (everybody needs a sangoma) gifted me the seahorses. The crucifi x is also from a friend; a purchase in Italy. The Nautilus shell embodies the ‘golden ratio’ so often found in nature: a symbol of symmetry. Insects thread their way through the diorama – moths are magical! – while birds and feathers evoke angelic hope.

The skull is topped by grouse-feet brooches, once good-luck gifts from Scottish wives to their husbands as they went hunting. They are signs of love and remembrance: ‘God watch over us while we’re apart.’ At the apex of the piece are two butterflies (the blue morpho is from a market in Milnerton, and the black-and-white one a present from a New York client). Metamorphosis!

-

Photography: Russel Smith / Text: Jonathan Bain