Untitled (Hope Chest Series)

Trained at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at Cape Town University, South African artist Zwelethu Mthethwa is known for his photographs and pastel images. Playfully overturning the conventions of painting and photography, his paintings have the feel of snapshots whereas his photographs are meticulously posed and constructed like a formal painted portrait. This lushly colored and carefully composed portrait is characteristic of his approach.
Part of Mthethwa's most recent, and still growing, series "Hope Chest," this body of 46 works explores the relationship between women and these chests which function both as containers for precious objects and as prestige objects.
Historically, such chests were presented to women on the occasion of their marriage and they were often the last gift a woman would receive from her families before assuming her new identity as a married women. The chest represents a psychological time capsule filled with goods specific to the woman's life as it is at that particular moment and her hopes for what it will become.