Lemkus Gallery is excited to announce our new artist-in-residence, Yonela Doda (@dodaizm). Doda (b.1998) in the Western Cape is a Cape Town based multimedia artist specialising in collage, who graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts at the Ruth Prowse School of Art Class of 2020.
Doda mainly draws inspiration from the Catharsis Theory which was first used in a psychological context by Josef Breuer. By experimenting with collage and thread in her engagement with human pathology, Doda communicates processes of purging and cleansing in line with notions of catharsis. She confronts how and why the body comes to matter, its materiality and function, as well as the fraught entanglements of race, gender, and medical science. Accordingly, it could be said that Doda’s work falls within the representational domain of ‘abject art’, as theorised by Julia Kristeva. Looking closely at dermatological afflictions, Doda’s work conveys the vulnerability of an open wound. Her collages counterpose beauty and abomination, sickness and health, in the unseen struggles of recovery and self-acceptance.
Doda has had works up at the Everard Read Gallery as part of the CUBICLE SERIES titled JOY SORROW curated by Emma van der Merwe, the Zeitz MOCAA under a children’s exhibition titled AndSoTheStoriesRanAway curated by Liesl Hartman and Richard Kilpert. Doda also featured in and won in a virtual group exhibition at ORMS Cape Town School of Photography titled DREAMED REALITIES. Doda featured in numerous Group Exhibition: THE MOVE curated by Phumelele Guma, PAST PRESENT CURRENTS curated by re-curators, DOGSFIGHT curated by Brett Seiler, GREATEST HITS GRADUATES 2020 curated by Mirjam Asmal, WHERE WE FOUND OURSELVES curated by Yonela Doda, BLAXPERIMENTA_THE FUTURE IN BOLD COLOUR BEYOND BINARIES curated by Beathur Mgozi Baker, HOUSE OF LOVE curated by Stephanie Blomkamp, JOBURG FRIDGE EDITION 14, ROMANCE curated by Luca Evans and Shayna Arvan, FEDE a group exhibition curated by Lebo Kekana, ANTI BOOTH curated by CHURCH PROJECTS presented at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, IFESTILE curated by Kim Makin presented for Surburbia Contemporary and MOMENTS IN TIME curated by Simona Stone for RK Contemporary.