We chat to Andrea Walters who won a Merit award at the Sasol New Signatures 2022 competition for her astounding pieces called #OverMyDeadBody.
Tell us about your artistic journey up until entering Sasol New Signatures 2022.
At the age of 50, I started studying visual arts through Unisa. Since I had experienced intimate partner violence over many years, my third-year installation, Vrou Vertaal, served as a personal retrospective. Situated in a black mirrored room, nightclub lighting and a mirror ball reflected red umbrellas, creating shards of light and the frenetic sense of a party gone horribly wrong. The injuries I sustained are embroidered in diamanté on one umbrella, while another is covered by my wedding veil, replete with pearls, fishhooks and text. A third umbrella is covered with Disney couples from a little girl’s party tablecloth. The women’s eyes are covered by black electrical tape. Three fluorescent video texts, explaining, apologising and threatening, meandered across the umbrellas.
When Reeva Steenkamp was shot by Oscar Pistorius in 2013, I decided to interrogate the murder in my fourth-year work. I received Kevlar offcuts supplied by a bulletproof vest manufacturer to SAPS Ballistics in Amanzimtoti. I was told that these remnants are stuffed into large white bags. Weapons recovered from serious crimes are then test-fired into the bags. As a consequence, the Kevlar fragments contain compressed bullets and gunpowder stains. I created a quilt from the fragments, embroidered with Reeva Steenkamp’s last Instagram post: “I woke up in a safe, happy home; not everyone did.” Her message referred to Anene Booysen, who had been gang-raped, disembowelled and left for dead the previous week by her ex-boyfriend and his friends. The Abject of Desire installation included large laser-cut stainless-steel medallions. One medallion, surrounded by a wreath of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow flowers, encloses four ladies’ toilet signs, where they hold hands. At the time, four women were killed daily by intimate partners in South Africa. The others, titled with reference to Pistorius’s sponsor slogans, are: Part man, part god (Thierry Mugler: A*men), My body is my weapon and I am the bullet in the chamber (Nike).
Why did you create the piece you submitted?
The #OverMyDeadBody exhibition interrogates the ongoing perception that it is acceptable for a man to punish a woman through violence or death. I am compelled to draw attention to the women who continue to die in SA at their partners’ hands. The names keep coming with frightening intensity.
I am delighted that the judges have accepted two components of my Unisa Master’s work, #OverMyDeadBody 1.
#OverMyDeadBody 1 comprises 50 Sunlight soap bars suspended on transparent shelves. The mouth of a SA femicide victim is carved on the front, while the back of the soap is inscribed with her name and age at the time of death. Sunlight soap is used in most households, and some cultures, it is used to prepare bodies for burial.
#OverMyDeadBody II is a mortuary gurney covered by a shroud obtained from a funeral parlour. The names of the victims have been embroidered in gold thread, a labour of love that took two years to complete. This work includes a vocal lament entitled Thula by Johannesburg singer Mariechan Luiters.
When people view your work, what reaction are you hoping to generate?
Being an activist artist, this work was created for people who are perhaps not familiar with the art world, but everyone knows about the terrible violence inflicted on women, especially those who are poverty-stricken and denied social and economic opportunities. A Sangoma and a Hindu psychic visited my exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery and responded very positively. Young male students came to hug me with tears in their eyes while some young women simply cried. As indicated in the visitor’s book, some viewers returned to the exhibition several times. I honestly did not expect this response, but I would hope that people will also engage with my work and think about it at the Pretoria Art Museum.
Details: www.sasolsignatures.co.za
