MEISIMAMA718. Mixed media on canvas, 100x100cm.
KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE
(b. 1973) lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
She creates portraits that sit at the blurry boundary between fine art and graffiti.
Adopting the graffiti or urban art language allows her to update, renew and challenge the conventions of painting, though her rendering of female subjects are inspired by Renaissance era portraiture. It also references digitised mass production and a futuristic post-human world, populated by perfect-looking female cyborgs. The result is a series of brightly coloured large-scale paintings, evoking the street, art history and the future.
Although Liversage has painted walls all over the world, including a large-scale mural at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, she does not consider herself a street artist. Operating within the framework of ‘urban contemporary’, Liversage may have incorporated aspects of street art into her practice – considerable scale, a predilection for working outside and the custom of tagging - but she trained as a fine artist and painting is her committed pursuit. She is a dedicated fine art painter. She is faithful to Renaissance standards of portraiture, working within the established canon, taking into account the very same compositional considerations as da Vinci or Piero della Francesca.
BUT, she breaks the mold, allowing for spontaneity of mark-making, for dripping and for glorious, generative chaos. She is the anarchist who comes to mess with the process, revealing in her rebellion the truth of the matter – the uselessness and the peril, for women, of colouring within the patriarchal lines.
In Liversage’s work, the masculine Gaze, to which all feminine is subject within a patriarchal framework, is plain to see. However, revealed as self-portraits, the feminine, cast in the roles given to her by the Gaze, stares knowingly, ferociously, straight back.
Few artists can capture a moment or an expression as confidently as Kilmany-Jo Liversage does. On top of that, each painting is an act of rebellion. There is the classic and "correct" represented by the classical portrait elements, and then there is her saying that the status quo needs to change or be better and that those who traditionally had not been respected or valued are equally important and relevant. This is expressed by her use of a hip-hop aesthetic. Her ability in combining the two elements into one powerful artwork makes that statement.
About her still life paintings, she has the following to say; “I paint flowers as a reference to the objectification of women. Flowers are supposed to bring beauty and colour to a space and often women are expected to do the same. Women are put under pressure to be beautiful. Even on social media we find apps designed to enhance certain feminine features. So in these still life paintings, I subtly add elements referring to women as objects of adornment. This is not a bunch of flowers. It is my take on flowers.”
EDUCATION
1994 H.Dip Fine Arts. Free State Technikon. Received a distinction in Painting
1997 B.Tech Fine Arts, Free State Technikon
SPECIAL HONOURS & AWARDS
2000 SASOL New Signatures Art Competition (Best Painting)
2005 UNESCO Aschberg Bursary, Paris France
2013 Back 2 back to Biennale. 55th Venice Biennale
2018 SCOPE Art Show, Miami
ARTIST RESIDENCY
2005 UNESCO Asch erg-Medellin, Colombia, South America
WORKSHOPS (GRAFFITI)
2005 Centro Colombo Americano. Paul Bardwell Contemporary Gallery of Modern Art – Medellin, Colombia
2005 University of Bolivariana, Department of Graphic Design, Colombia
COLLECTIONS
Nando’s collection
Department of Science and Technology, Pretoria, South Africa
Absa Bank Art Collection, South Africa
Centro Colombo Americano. Paul Bardwell Contemporary Gallery of Modern Art – Medellin, South America
Comfandi Centre-Cali, Colombia
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 REVOL. WORLDART, Cape Town
2023 Illumina, Everard Read, London
2019 FEMFLEKTA619. WORLDART, Cape Town
2018 Chroma718. Everead Read Gallery, Johannesburg
2016 Orda716. WORLDART, Cape Town
2016 Orda716. Lizamore & Associates
2015 Ordamental515. Hay Hill Gallery, London
2014 Obversa714. WORLDART, Cape Town
2014 Obversa714. Lizamore & Associates
2012 Portra. Source 53, Singapore
2012 Portra. Artspace gallery, Johannesburg
2012 Portra. WORLDART, Cape Town
2011 Moniker. WORLDART, Cape Town
2010 Orda 2010. Erdmann Contemporary
2009 Symbol of Tribute. Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town
2006 Orda 2006. Blank Projects
2003 Orda 2003. Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011 Tattoo Convention, Word of Art, Woodstock, Cape Town
2010 Creative Context: A Group Show by Contemporary African Fine Artists. Singapore
2010 World Aids Congress – Vienna, Brussels
2010 Matters Conceptually, Erdmann Gallery, Cape Town
2005 Graffiti is Public Art, Jardin Botanical Garden, Medellin, Colombia
2004 Spier Outdoor Sculpture Biennale 2004, Stellenbosch, Cape Town
MUSEUM SHOW
2023 If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future, African American Museum, Dallas.USA
WORLDART CONVERSATIONS 2:
KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE
KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE: VENICE BIENNALE 2013
KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE: 16/365 INTERVIEW ON MORNING LIVE
PUBLISHED ARTICLES
PRIVATE: FEMALE CYBORGS DESIGNED BY MEN FOR MEN
Kilmany-Jo Liversage Cape Times 13 July 2016
FROM THE MACADAM TO THE MILKY WAY:
‘Street Level,’ Group Exhibition Curated By Andrew LamprechtArt Africa September 2015
SQUIGGLES & SCRIBBLES AND OTHER CULTURAL HAPPENINGS
Kilmany-Jo Liversage ED Gallery November 2014
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
Kilmany-Jo Liversage, Vitshois Bondo, Dion CupidoArt South Africa December 2013