Faith47 / Faith XLVII (born Cape Town, 1979) is a South African interdisciplinary artist who has held solo exhibitions in Miami (2018), New York City (2015), London (2014) and Johannesburg (2012). As both a notable South African and woman artist, Faith speaks to issues of human rights, spiritual endurance and social issues.
Biography
As both a notable South African and woman artist, Faith speaks to issues of human rights, spiritual endurance and social issues. Faith XLVII began painting in 1997, three years after the end of apartheid. Using a wide range of media, her approach is explorative and substrate appropriate – from found and rescued objects, to time-layered and history-textured city walls, to studio-prepared canvas and wood. A self-taught artist, Faith is widely regarded as one of the most famous South African street artists, her art reaching international fame.
Common themes across Faith's work include sacred and mundane spaces as well as political problems, from environmental destruction, border abolition, and humanitarian issues. Her female figures speak to female empowerment. Her art and rich symbolism speaks to issues of injustice, poverty, and inequality. Her murals are often referred to as post-apartheid, as they confront the failure of neo-liberal politics of the South African Freedom Charter in violent and impoverished townships in South Africa. Her works are often associated with spirituality. In one of Faith's books she writes, "I am not religious but I pray through my work to unknown devils and gods. I look for my soul in colors and empty my being through parables of rusted, lost metal doors." She also has mentioned in an interview her process of urban exploration in which she feels spirits, "In empty buildings that felt like spiritual experiences, exploring holy chambers of neglected architecture... finding something so beautiful in what society disregards, and bringing to life that which usually people throw away or ignore." One can see the influence on environment in her site specific works, exploring abandoned spaces in her work is a recurring basis.
Faith has a son, Keya Tama
Keya was born in 1997 and is an artist who has worked under the alias' Cashril Plus and Jack Fox before finally settling on his given name, Keya Tama.
Faith has been extensively traveling and creating site-specific artwork globally since 2006. Her artwork can be found in over 50 cities worldwide. Faith is a self-taught artist. Her schooling came through graffiti art of which she began in 1997. Her move into contemporary gallery and studio environment, as well as her exploitive directions into multimedia projects can define Faith as a multidisciplinary artist and in a league quite unique of her own. Faith and Keya moved to Los Angeles in 2018.
Notable solo exhibitions
2012, Fragments of a Burnt History, David Krut Gallery, Johannesburg. Faith's first solo exhibition considered the transformation of Johannesburg into a more representative African city, exposing the harsh realities of day-to-day life and capturing the remnants of South Africa's complex history in a personal and symbolic manner. Through the creation of an immersive environment in the gallery space, this work challenged the viewer's detachment.
2014, Aqua Regalia – Chapter One, Moniker Projects, London. This exhibition further extended the possibilities of immersive spaces, enveloping the viewer into a sacred ‘room’ filled with collected objects and other intricacies from everyday life that – together with figurative paintings – explore the notion of the mundane as sacred, celebrating the discarded and unwanted as holy.
2015,Aqua Regalia – Chapter Two, Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York. Was a continuation of this, again exploring the dichotomy between the sacred and the mundane by enveloping viewers in a space with figurative paintings, as well as intricacies from everyday life in shrine-like artworks. The two exhibitions were named after a highly corrosive mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid that has the ability to dissolve gold.
2018, Elixir, Fabien Castanier Gallery, Miami. Elixir was a multi-disciplinary exhibition conceived by Faith XLVII that aimed to incite exploration in the viewer, both internally and externally. The project as a whole constructed a non-linear narrative, acting as a lens into an introspective view of the human condition. Amidst the chaos of today's economic, social and ecological upheavals, Elixir aimed to bring psychological questioning and healing to the viewer; a kind of elixir of life.