Worldart, Cape Town

In downtown Johannesburg last year I first came across the activities of the “Red Ants”, the ruthless force deployed by the municipality to evict “illegal” squatters. The image of the red ant has haunted me: their efficiency and single-mindedness, the idea that the homeless and the shack dweller are dirt to be overrun and cleaned up by a force of killer ants. I was struck by the disjunction between the ache in the human heart for a home and the material forces of law and order. My response as an artist was to revisit 50 paintings on paper that I painted in 1998 and rework and adapt them to the situation in 2010, when countless individuals are actually evicted from their homes or have to live with the threat from day to day.

These paintings are to be placed in the Spier collection.