april-2019

38 / PEOPLE / Photographers
PEOPLE / 39
Arthur
Keef
Born
Kenya
Hometown
Nairobi
“Every day presents its
own hurdles to jump over.
It’s exciting”
The Future White Women Of Azania I, 2012. Lightjet print, 80 x 120 cm, Edition
of 5. Photographer: Hayden Phipps. Image courtesy of Athi-Patra Ruga and
WHATIFTHEWORLD
“I’m interested in
telling the stories
of my community,
with the highest
integrity and with
the highest level of
technique”
Umesiyakazi in Waiting (Detail), (Previously Miss Azania 2019), 2015. Archival Ink-jet Print on Photorag Baryta, 161 x 205 cm, Edition of 10.
Photographer: Hayden Phipps. Image courtesy of Athi-Patra Ruga and WHATIFTHEWORLD
Athi-
Patra
Ruga
Born
South Africa
Highlights
Nominated for Fashion Photographer of the
Year in 2018
Best-known work
Afro series; Red series
THERE’S A directness and immediacy to
Arthur Keef’s work. The Kenyan photographer
focuses on sensuality and body
confidence. According to Keef, the body is
a thing of glory that ought to be set against
vibrant backdrops and accentuated by
flawless make-up, costume and props.
“A lot of my projects show skin in an
artistic and creative way, not in a sexual
way,” says Keef. “This might go back to
my childhood. I was always the chubby
kid people made fun of; so all my clothes
were those that completely covered me up.
I never had a moment when I was proud
of the body I was in until much later in
life. This might be the reason why my
work portrays the opposite.”
Learning his craft from YouTube
tutorials, Keef acquired a loan from a
sibling then scrimped and saved until he
could afford his first camera. By 2013,
he’d started his production company.
“Photography stands as the one thing I’ve
done consistently. This boils down to the
fact that I love challenges. It’s something
that entices me knowing that I will never
get bored. Every day presents its own
hurdles to jump over. It’s exciting,” he says.
Keef builds his projects around his
models. Although it’s a gamble given that
the subject could unexpectedly become
unavailable, he finds that this approach
tends to put all parties in sync. Despite
finding a rhythm in his work, Keef remembers
to leave room for the imagination.
The next step for this burgeoning
photographer is to develop a print series
and exhibit his work. “It will be difficult
due to how expensive it is, but I guess that
if it wasn’t challenging, everyone would
be doing it,” he says.
SOUTH AFRICAN multi-disciplinary
artist, Athi-Patra Ruga, is reimagining
the future one fabulous avatar at a time.
He offers a utopian counterproposal to
how the world presently operates by
subverting socialised divisions between
entities, such as the mind and body,
sensuality and intelligence, pop culture,
craft and fine art.
This kind of work cannot be limited
to one medium. Ruga, whose portfolio
stretches across a decade and a half, uses
varied combinations of costume, performance,
video and photography to craft
his pieces.
Ruga credits his ability to confidently
pursue varied art forms from the happy
home his parents created. “I’ve always
known that I could use the millennia-old,
art-making tradition of where I’m from.
I can make my own space within these
spaces,” he says.
It hasn’t always been easy. Challenging
the political and social status quo has
brought out the worst in others around
him. “People react to my identity wherever
I turn. That resistance those people gave
me became the greatest artistic material,”
says Ruga.
He’s actively documenting his work
to allow ease of access by marginalised
pockets of his community. This also serves
as an archive of knowledge, a matter Ruga
feels is important to accomplish.
“I’m interested in telling the stories of
my community, with the highest integrity,
and with the highest level of technique
and quality. I want to make things that
will outlive us. I want to work to that
standard,” he says.
After a successful show at London’s
Somerset House with his first major international
retrospective exhibition, “Of
Gods, Rainbows and Omissons”, Ruga is
turning his attention to developing a
children’s book, a new video and an
ambitious calendar project involving the
Xhosa cosmological lunar cycle.
Hometown
Umtata, South Africa
Highlights
Exhibited at Iziko South African National
Gallery (Cape Town); Art Afrique at Louis
Vuitton Foundation (Paris); and the 56th
Venice Biennale
Best-known work
The Future White Women of Azania Saga
exhibition; The Knight of the Long Knives 1
Night of the Long Knives III, 2013. Archival Ink-jet Print on Photorag Baryta, 150 x 190 cm, Edition of 5 + 2AP.
Photographer: Hayden Phipps. Image courtesy of Athi-Patra Ruga and WHATIFTHEWORLD