a solo exhibition by

Kilmany-Jo Liversage

When Kilmany-Jo Liversage had her first solo exhibition in Cape Town in 2006, it was still unusual for artists to combine urban and graffiti mark making techniques with fine art. But this rebellious fine art graduate had just returned from an artist residency where she had fallen in love with graffiti and it did not take long before classic Italian renaissance portraiture combined with urban art from the streets became the style most people recognised her paintings by.

What set her apart was that she was a good painter who did not just copy graffiti onto canvas. She understood and respected both genres and combined them to show the world that one is not better than the other. All while pushing her strong belief in gender equality. Her portraits mainly feature confident women who return the male gaze and who insist on their equal presence in a new world.

“Portraiture is an incredible genre. It starts with the eyes, the nose and then the mouth. And then there is the mark making. It’s almost like a voyeuristic journey – these women are caught in the moment and they are consumed by colour, from the colour of their skin tone to the effect of the light on their skin,” she says.

The title of this exhibition is REVOL, a reference to the words “revel” and “rebel”. Though the subjects in her paintings may be contemplative, they are also revelling in the moment. The rebellious aspect is a reference to the urban street art element in her art.

In REVOL, Liversage zooms out away from the portraiture to include figures and present a wider perspective. “As one gets older, one seems to both gain and lose confidence at the same time. It’s an interesting thing. So with these paintings I tried to preserve the subject’s youth – something we’re all holding on to – while offering more layers or context with expressive mark making.”

REVOL will be on show from 7 –21 December at WORLDART (54 Church Street, Cape Town cbd).