Artist Kevin Brand reworks a child’s vision of African Guernica
Brand continues his theme of childhood and conflict with a sculpture inspired by a crayon drawing, writes Lucinda Jolly
Although highly creative and imaginative, artist Kevin Brand is not given to sudden flights of fancy. But in an about turn, out of sync with his profile, he says of his new incarnation: "I will never [again] be disparaging about people who talk about this vision that came to them in the night. The sudden shift of attitude must be laid squarely at the foot of his latest sculpture installation titled Janjaweed. Much about the sculpture, particularly its synchronicity, is, if not mysterious, then curious and slightly at odds with the everyday. "I don’t want to sound religious, but this thing just told me how it should be done. I literally woke up and then it came through me," Brand says. The eight-piece sculpture installation (Janjaweed is Arabic for "devils on horseback") is loosely based on a drawing by a Sudanese child aged between 11 and 12 years. It expresses the child’s experience of being caught in the conflict between the Janjaweed militia and the villagers of Darfur in 2005. T...
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