The paintings are curiously produced; drawing, tea-staining, acrylics, sandpapering and scraping them with rocks are all part of the mediums and processes he uses to arrive at his final products. Paintings such as The Beer and Braaivleis Battle and The Battle of Cape Agulhas, 1972 are filled with allusions to and appropriations form Khoi rock paintings, Hogarthian social debauchery, the Bayeux Tapestry, actual paintings of the period, contemporary visual culture and the childlike play of Quinton Blake.
'Yes, it is set here [in Cape Town], yet it is also timeless', he says. In all his paintings, the artist explains, there is a mixture of signifiers appropriated from various cultures, both ancient and contemporary. By doing this, he suggests that he wants to step outside of the narrow confines of 18th century colonial South Africa. His work is, and is not historical representation.
I meet with the artist after his walkabout for an interview and a walk through Cape Town. I am interested to know what his thoughts are on the idea of representation and who has the right to represent who. 'My parents', he says, 'grew up in the Civil Rights movement in the States. My dad is always on about it. But my mother, well, actually my mother doesn’t give a shit. But my dad is very conscious of the way we are viewed and the way we are represented'.
The conversation drifts onto Pieter Hugo, an artist with whom he has exchanged art with in the past. I ask Frohawk whether he thinks the accusation is fair that Hugo’s work merely exoticises Africa. 'I mean we are all young', he begins, 'it is different for us. Pieter Hugo, I think, is like me and that is one reason why I really enjoy his art. Pieter is often making fun of the exoticising of Africa. But I am sure the reason why Pieter Hugo gets so much shit is because he is white'.
Similarly, Frohawk’s work seems to confuse, and complicates certain notions of representation. Neither the indigenous population nor the colonialists are represented as morally superior; both are the subject of rebuke and praise. The complicated written narrative that accompanies his exhibition is filled with stories of betrayals and crimes on both sides. 'Basically, more often than not, my work actually deals a lot with that duplicity', he says, 'and after researching the history for this show I realised that nobody was good – everybody was dirty in some way'.
He adds: 'I think there are a lot of black people who get upset with me because I don’t do something that is one-sided. I don’t think that it is possible to tell a good story without exploring both sides. I mean, you can tell a John Wayne story – those are always pretty popular – but that’s not what I am trying to do. I want to represent the small vignettes, and it is not as cut and dry as some people seem to think'.
The conversation strays from art to history. As we walk up Wale Street, Frohawk asks me what it was like growing up during apartheid. I stumble through some rehearsed lines about separate amenities and the opening of schools when I was 16, but am suddenly struck dumb with the complexities of my feelings towards the both the past and present. 'I mean it is not black and white', states Frohawk. 'But it is difficult with the close proximity of apartheid, it is not so easy to dismiss it'.
We continued talking for another hour, on topics shifting from history to his broader plans for his imagined tales of the Frenglish Empire. The project itself is far from finished: the artist is off to the Caribbean to research for the next installment.
