'VICTOR VICTOR'
David Brits at Wembley Project SpaceiArt Gallery Wembley is pleased to present David Brits’ solo show, VICTOR VICTOR. Up until 1994, almost all able-bodied white male South Africans were called up for National Service around the time of leaving high school. As far as most of these young men were concerned, there was little option but to perform this duty or face harsh consequences. From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, as many as 300 000 young South African men served in the military, many of whom were sent to fight the ‘Border War’ in northern Namibia and Angola.
Today the sons of those men may question their fathers’ motives. Brits reflects on these men, and his own relationship with his father. He traces his path through the past by scratching, defacing and blacking out found images posted by ex-servicemen on Facebook. In another series of collages on vintage paper, drawings of South African soldiers are half obscured by torn images from natural history collections. Out of the patriarchal authority, symbolised by uniforms and flags, a new vocabulary is built, populated with hybrid creatures that mesh flora and fauna, obscenity and pathos.
24 August - 21 September













