Cheese I, 2023

Photography, premium satin giclee dibond mounted, Limited edition of 10
146 x 97 x 0.1 cm
57 1/2 x 38 3/16 x 1/16 inches
146 x 100 x 5 cm (incl frame)
57 1/2 x 39 3/8 x 1 15/16 inches (incl frame)
After turning her Instagram selfie experiments into a thriving art career, Vogue Magazine said Tony Gum might be ‘the coolest girl in Cape Town’. Since then, she has caught the eyes and imagination of international collectors and critics alike. Her gaze into the complexities of life as a woman in South Africa, the challenges faced by so many of her peers, friends and family and her explorations of identity, community and culture are her reasons for being right now. Gum’s photographic portraits are deeply allegorical, and Milked in Africa (including two as yet unseen pieces) is certainly cause for dialogue. Gum started this portraiture series in 2016 and has been consistently building on her post-colonial metaphors with each new release. Recently, Gum has been examining acute themes of homogenisation in her green character, who has departed from pastoral archetypes to becoming a modernized figure. Her character is styled in a series of ornate modern headscarves and the red ochre ‘imbola’ traditional clay pigment, makes way for a striking new green pigment – the reference to the adornment favoured by Xhosa women remains. Gum’s use of dairy products in her work is a device used as a focal point and pointed metaphor: examining both the archetypal, contemporary and commercial aspects of milk, as well as the dairy system, are her means of examining the changing roles and perceptions of women in 21st century society.