At the centre of this white-and-gold piece is a bust of Mao Zedong himself, from around 1968. The text below it reads ‘long live the chairman’. (He died in 1976, at the age of 82.) Mao is reimagined here, a feminised version of the masculine revolutionary so familiar in Chinese propaganda. The visage purposefully provokes... surely it takes a real man to wear lipstick?

The bust is ringed in pearls from my ouma, with a bright red bindi a challenge to the chairman’s state-atheist ambitions. Recurring themes in my work are present here, too: wings and feathers inspire hope; nautilus shells – in stereo – symbolise harmony.

There are beginnings, endings, and beauty. We must decorate or die!

A halo of the Cape’s white cabbage butterflies suggests loss and reverence, while the brooched papegaai casts a sidewise glance at the whole show. For me, Mao is all about good fortune – from those ancestors supporting you – and a sense of aesthetic theatre.

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Photography: Russel Smith / Text: Jonathan Bain