WAYNE BARKER: Postcards and Unwritten Letters

Wayne Barker's series of postcard paintings deal with “the vernacular images of my youth” - the cliché, iconic postcards from South Africa’s troubled Colonial and Apartheid-era history. The sepia toned postcards of downtown Joburg come from the 1936 Empire Exhibition, held in in South Africa to promote the British presence. Sunny Durban beachfront scenes from the 1960s promote the Apartheid government’s narrative and so Barker’s postcards confront the viewer with the paradox of a bittersweet nostalgia.

In the same way that Barker rewrites history in his previous Pierneef landscapes, he again transforms history through interruption and intervention.

The work calls up the ghosts of our collective history.