Liam VAN DER HEEVER

Liam Van Der Heever is an artist who has currently produced a body of work that aims to embrace identity and experience, as a person of colour. Whilst also cultivating wider socio-political perspective. The artworks he produces are in hopes of creating an empowering message for South Africa’s people of colour.

Van Der Heever works with themes of nostalgic perseverance, which is achieved through the use of “street games”, carefully crafted objects and varied materials with particular significance to his life. These games have induced a soft nostalgia within the artist with relation to his childhood, as well as a further connection to those who have played before him. He refers to these as innovations under oppression, which are important for communities of colour, as they were cultivated during an era of restriction produced by the Apartheid regime.

The materials used such as charcoal, Sunlight soap, red bricks etc. relate back to POC experience of life under Apartheid and its after effects. This is also prevalent through the reoccurring usage of distinct culturally relevant iconography, such as Chappie’s bubble-gum and Dominoes.

Van Der Heever also uses a combination of built and inherited chairs, varied in size to emphasize the overarching effects which Apartheid has had on POC youth. He hopes that this will create an attention towards the consequences of Apartheid, such as the trauma’s that are passed on from generation to generation.