Framing the artwork of Tracey Rose and Berni Searle through black feminism

Abstract

My research was motivated by the lack of elaborate feminism and particularly the absence of black feminism in South African art histories. I investigate how Tracey Rose and Berni Searle employ autobiography to insert themselves in their artworks and in the broader visual arts domain. Rose and Searle use their own bodies and performative strategies of self-­‐ representation in order to re-­‐construct and re-­‐structure their identities. In so doing, they subvert South African black women identities that have been prescribed by a patriarchal, colonial, and imperialist apartheid system. My research highlights how Rose’s and Searle’s work, when read in light of black feminism, not only critiques and subverts subordination of black women, but also provides new and empowering ways of contemplating the artworks of black female artists in the South African context.