Context (CMS Context)
Joao Wenne Dikuanga was born during the early 1920s near Cuito in Angola, where his family made a living as hunter-gatherers. In the late 1950s, Dikuanga worked in Johannesburg in a gold mine for a few years before returning home. When his parents were killed in the Angolan war in the late 1970s, he fled to Omega in Namibia, where he was employed as tracker and kitchen worker by the South African Defence Force. He is an accomplished artist whose work has been exhibited in galleries in South Africa, Europe, Scandinavia and America. He lives with his wife and children on their communal farm, Platfontein, near Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province. (Taken from http://www.cca.uct.ac.za/story_telling_people/?lid=254 and http://www.kalaharipeoples.net/article.php?i=197&c=11).
Event Date 2/6/2014
Author: Remke van der Velden

Context (CMS Context)
Presented by The Art Fund and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. An acquisition project to build a collection of modern and contemporary work on paper from Australia, Canada and South Africa was undertaken over 2011-13 with the support of a grant under The Art Fund's RENEW programme. The collection was developed with the expert advice and generous assistance of Annie Coombes and Norman Vorano in relation to South African and Inuit artists respectively. Khadija Carroll, Anita Herle and Diana Wood Conroy also contributed to the selection process. !Xun and Khwe Art Project Lithographs.
The !Xun and Khwe Art Project was started in 1993 by Catharina Meyer. Meyer started the Kuru Art Project in D’Kar in 1989 and based on her success with Kuru decided to work with the !Xun and Khwe community at Schmidtsdrift. The community, originally from northern Namibia and southern Angola decided to come to South Africa when the South African Defence Force withdrew from Namibia when it became independent. During the liberation war in Namibia the !Xun and Khwe were recruited into the SADF. Fearing reprisals, the community were granted South African citizenship. Schmidtsdrift was a military tent town on a farm outside Kimberley. A semi-desert landscape with bitterly cold winters, in a country that the community had no real links to, Schmidtsdrift had the quality of a refugee/concentration camp. In 2003 the community moved to Platfontein, a farm that was bought on their behalf, also near Kimberly. Many of the social problems resulting from dislocation, lack of resources and unemployment followed the community to Platfontein. The art project has struggled with continuity and funding and support and sadly many of the original artists have died.
The artists were given the opportunity to express their thoughts, their ideas, their stories, their myths and their customs using modern media such as oil or acrylic painting as well as various print techniques. The art project enabled the artists to make a living and provide for their families and to overcome the trauma of war and deprivation. What is poignant about these prints is the equal treatment given to plants, animals, rosaries, guns, alcohol, identity, birds and landmines.
In 1994 Tamar Mason initiated a tinwork project with women at Schmidtsdrift. The craft project produced decorative household items from recycled and waste tin sheeting. Having coordinated the first lithographs produced with the Kuru Art Project she then assisted Mark Attwood to get funding from The Foundation For Creative Arts for a lithography workshop and to edition a suite of prints. These are the prints that resulted from the project. They were not published by The Artists’ Press but were the property of the artists and were sold under the auspices of the art project.
Event Date 2/6/2014
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Single colour handprinted lithograph by Joao Wenne Dikuanga titled 'Snakebite', 1995. Edition: 10/19. Signed by the artist. Inscribed on reverse with 'BAT 95-10' and a sun stamp. A blindstamp of The Artists Press logo and one with an M-shaped design are visible in the bottom right hand corner. Condition: Very Good.
Event Date 2/6/2014
Author: maa