Paul Emmanuel

Paul Emmanuel was born in Kabwe, Zambia and graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1993. Emmanuel employs various media, including photography and film, to reveal layered visions concerned with his identity as a young white male living in post-apartheid South Africa. To date Emmanuel has two projects, The Lost Men and TRANSITIONS

The Lost Men

The Lost Men is exhibited as a site-specific installation in various particular spaces that bring their own history and relevance to the content of the images. The viewer encounters the installation, engaging with a personal expression in a public arena. The names of men who have died in conflicts from each particular site are cast in lead type and blind embossed onto the artist's body. These fleeting impressions are photographed before the contemporary bruising fades. These photographs of the artist's marked body and skin are then printed onto large, delicate, semi transparent voile and silk organza sheets that are hung outdoors in the landscape and left to the wind.

TRANSITIONS

TRANSITIONS comprise a series of five ostensibly 'photographic' works which, when examined closely, are revealed as sensitively hand-drawn, photo-realist sequences of images. These film-like progressions obsessively capture liminal moments of five transitory stages in life. A sixth work titled 3SAI: A RITE OF PASSAGE - a 14 minute film produced by the artist - documents the head shaving of new recruits at the Third South African Infantry Battalion (3SAI) in Kimberley. TRANSITIONS has been shown in all major South Africa museums. It made its American debut at the Smithsonian Institution and will be shown at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore USA in 2011.

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