Alex Hamilton's Afrotize

Above: The vinyl collection

Alex Hamilton is an artist based in Cape Town whose work is heavily influenced by, and reflective of, pop culture. If you are interested in learning more about his art, influences, and processes you can read my November 2008 interview with him for brainwavez.org, which concerned his previous exhibition, Cast & Crew.

Above: rastamadonna

Alex's latest exhibition is Afrotize, "a satirical comment on colonialism, fashion, popular iconography and, of course, hair". I attended the opening a few weeks ago and the exhibition is still running at his studio in Woodstock.

Much of the artwork for Afrotize focuses on stencilled pop-culture icons, past and present, who have been reinvented in quite a fascinating manner with an afro or rasta stylings. There is also some artwork that has been done on vinyl records and a few larger pieces that are reminiscent of 1970s pop art, but with a contemporary edge.

Above: The topless biker babe that had all the men attending the exhibiton's opening quite mesmerised.

The work is firmly tongue in cheek and amusing to behold and, as much as I find reinvented uses for vinyl records (assuming they are not scratched beyond further use) to be a form of sacrilege, I quite liked the vinyl pop art (you can see examples of it in this post's lead picture).

The exhibition is running until the end of the week, so you have time to visit to see Alex's work (and partake of a free drink or two if you go to the exhibition's closing on Friday evening - and who doesn't like art and a free drink?). There's even free parking at the back of the building so you have no excuse not to go.