Jane Alexander: Street cadets with harbinger: wish, walk/Loop, Long.
Alexander has never stopped growing, in creativity or in her ambition for style. The latest work she has exhibited is called Street cadets with harbinger: wish, walk/Loop, Long. It was exhibited at the annual Standard Bank National Arts Festival held in Grahamstown, South Africa, in July this year, as part of an exhibition called Bringing Up Baby.
Alexander created three figures for this sculpture. No fixed meaning is attached to the work, making it evocative and poetic through its non-specific subject and theme. The work has qualities of form, space and varying physical texture.
Alexander's stimulation for this work came in part from watching the homeless street children that occupy the street that she lives on in the centre of Cape Town called Long Street. The figures she is depicting are lost children that society cannot or chooses not to look after. The three carefully sculptured figures are depicting children in the world of make-believe, emphasized by the fact that two are wearing masks to aid their imagination. However, the figures appear to be more than masked children; they are almost animal-like, specifically the middle child who appears mutated, seeming to have baboon-like attributes. They are part person, part animal, and are almost dehumanised. They are in a twilight zone between human and animal domains. In many instances, street children are often given animal attributes by the people and society that surround them. They appear to inhabit this middle domain almost too easily.
These children are made to take on the roles of small adults before their time because of the need for survival. The three figures seem to form a family, with the middle figure being the leader or dominant figure. This is because he is both pushing and pulling the other two figures, and is wearing clearly adult shoes and gloves. The children have to care for themselves, and by operating together they form a single unit, dependent on one another for survival. An element of street violence also comes into the work.
Even though the middle figure appears to be pulling and pushing two mobile carriers with wheels, the whole composition is surprisingly static. There are many different tactile sensations created by the different materials Alexander uses in her work. There is the hard, cold metal of the trolleys, classic, antique wood, wool, normal cotton, rubber from the trolley wheels, leather, clay and soft, rich fake fur.
The shock value of the work, typical of Alexander's sculptures, is created by contrasts between the accessories and clothes these children have, suggesting a safe, happy home, and the reality of their lives. Each item takes on a new meaning when seen in the context of the street children who are wearing or using them.
The street children that Alexander is referring to could have in some instances chosen to live on the streets rather than stay at homes where there is alcoholism, physical abuse and gangsterism. They survive on the street much like animals survive in the wild. They dull their pain by sniffing glue; merchants give the children leftovers and often they beg for food.
The first child is a little girl being pushed on a simple trolley. She is wearing a large mask on her face, appearing to imitate Mickey Mouse because of its large ears. The pain and suffering of this child is hidden by a huge smile. It is as if society has placed this mask on her, and all street children, not wanting to know anything about them or their situation. Her face is molded perfectly, and yet is completely gray, almost suggesting death. She is passively standing on the trolley as the second child pushes her. The trolley has pictures on little blocks laid next to one another, with pictures of monkeys, doggies, pandas and bunny-rabbits on them, images one finds in a comforting, warm home. These children are denied these accessories. The steel frame of the trolley symbolises their hard, steel-like lives.
The second child is the most animal-like, with a face and stance that appears more baboon-like than human. There is a small forehead with a large mouth and jaw-line. The large mouth could signify the hunger that these children have for love, care and acceptance. The face has two large, dark brown eyes staring unseeingly straight ahead of it. Even though the eyes are blank, they appear sad, and almost pleading. The child is dressed in a full gray monkey-suit. He is wearing male adult black leather shoes and large brown leather driving-gloves. This is typical of children dressing up in their parents' clothes when playing make-believe games. But for these children it is not make believe - it is a matter of survival, where these children have to take the responsibility of adults.
The third child is sitting on an antique-looking wooden carrier. Like the first child, she is wearing white, although in smaller amounts, possibly showing purity and innocence, which these children long for. The figure is wearing white woolen booties with white ribbons and white shorts with light blue dots. She is dressed in a dark green button-down long-sleeved top with white buttons. On the bottom of the right sleeve the following words are embroidered on: "dreams and wish walk/Loop Long." On the other sleeve is a white embroidered teddy bear with hearts for flowers. The incredible attention to detail seems ironic when considering that these children have no loving parents to pamper and care for them. The contrast between their reality that is so painful they have to wear masks, and this make-believe one, adds to the shock value of the work. The makeshift nappy the figure is wearing shows the incongruity and the gaps in the perfect imaginary image that is being presented.
The child is wearing a white woolen head mask that appears to have been taken from a large bunny-rabbit hand puppet. This child's escape into the imaginary seems to be the most advanced, because the entire head is enveloped in the warm, woolen covering, completely shielding it from reality.
The words "dreams and wish walk/Loop Long" on the sleeves and in the title could literally symbolise the dreams and wishes these street children have, and the only way they can live them is through fantasy.
