Sandile Zulu (South African, born 1962) Labyrinth of Genes and Elements I, 2004

Sandile Zulu (South African, born 1962) Labyrinth of Genes and Elements I, 2004 fire, water, air, earth, canvas and stones on canvas installation: 108 x 378cm (42 1/2 x 148 13/16in) in 56 individual canvases: 27 x 27cm (10 5/8 x 10 5/8in). Footnotes: Provenance A private collection, Dorset, UK; Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 2006; A private collection, UK. Literature C. Richards, Sandile Zulu: Portrait of the artist as a young firebrand (Johannesburg: TAXI Art Books, 2005), p. 72 (illustrated). Born in the town of Ixopo, in the Nwazulu-Natal region of South Africa, Sandile Zulu began his study at Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre in 1982. Shortly after, he became one of the few black students to enrol at Technikon Natal in nearby Durban to study Fine Art, and by 1993 he received his degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It was during his time at Wits University that Zulu first began his experimentations with fire as a medium. Fire would later serve as the title of his first solo show in 1995 at the Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery in Johannesburg. Zulu's first UK solo show took place at the October Gallery in London in 2005. Entitled Fire This Time: Planetary Cycle, it showcased Zulu's monumental fire paintings. Labyrinth of Genes and Elements 1 is a work comprised of fifty-six canvases. The repeated squares represent the building blocks of genetic codes. Each canvas has been burned with patterns of coiled DNA strands. The calm order of the grid structure opposes the violence of Zulu's creative method, communicating the artist's belief in an underlying universal harmony. Bibliography C. Richards, Sandile Zulu: Portrait of the artist as a young firebrand (Johannesburg: TAXI Art Books, 2005), pp. 61-2. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing