Archive: Issue No. 76, December 2003

The subjects of Kay Hassan's portraits are unknowable. Whether lost in a flourish of whimsical brushstrokes, or furtively hidden in the pixelated grain of composite detail, Hassan denies us detail, the subjectivity of his portraits lost in blur and impressionist brush lines. But I am getting ahead of myself here.

Kay Hassan's recent show at Gallery Momo incorporated works in three distinct media: watercolour, collage as well as an installation-based series of pieces. Of the three, his large wall mounted collages certainly proved the most striking. Instantly noticeable as you approached the gallery from the street, these works possessed a gripping immediacy. It is to Hassan's credit that the works never quite resolved their own internal standoff between abstraction and figuration.

My initial enthusiasm was, however, dampened somewhat by Hassan's other offerings. Less convincing than his collages were the artist's small watercolours, headshots rendered in a monotone eerily reminiscent of Marlene Dumas. They weren't bad, but struck me as doodles, sketch book observations that have their own merit but lack a certain oomph. I was also rather flummoxed by his glass vitrines, half-filled with used glasses and spectacle pouches. While the milk bottle thickness of the lenses certainly occasioned a bemused pause, as too did the heaps of spent frames lumped on the floor, viewed in isolation the series proved unremarkable.

It was only after a wander through the rear of Monna wa Mokoena's beautifully appointed gallery space that my interlude in the room of discarded eyes took on a renewed significance. Confronting in full, microscopic view the blown-out pixelated grain of Hassan's large collages, the implications of his cheeky wall mounted vitrines suddenly seemed less comical and more thoughtful. From a perspective of intense nearness, visibility, and indeed individuality, suddenly retreated.

Viewed as a whole, Hassan's obfuscatory techniques were both frustrating and invigorating. I personally liked his collage works. Unlike his contemporaries, many who seem content to use this technique to create infuriatingly bad and thoroughly unsatisfying assemblage works, Kay Hassan has managed to create elusive works that journey beyond the surface of things.

October 25 - November 15