Title: Rural scene with shacks
Medium: Mixed media – ink and watercolour on paper
Signed and dated: 1982
Unframed: 26.5cm x 35.5cm
Framed: 57cm x 66.5cm
Boonzaier can be regarded as the first artist that represented locations (the black slums) in South Africa. He was criticised for selecting the pitiful to adorn and romanticise. Boonzair (Bekker 1990:35) explains this choice of subject as follows: “From childhood I have been unimpressed by new suburbs, anonymous cities with ugly skyscrapers, air pollution and the rush and hubbub of teeming traffic and freeways… My slum paintings may well be a reaction against everything that glitters, or that is noisy and artificial. Time and again I feel the urge to break away from city life and seek a quiet spot, a lonely donkey cart in a District Six street, a clump of trees bending in the wind next to a location, These subjects appeals to me most.”
