Investigating the physical human form and basic human experience, the artworks of Olwethu De Vos serve as a call for closeness.

De Vos observes how preconceived notions of identity, cultural and traditional values, set morals and racial, gendered and societal ideologies tend to govern how we relate to one another and tend to taint our lived experiences. These preconceived ideologies tend to create barriers of difference and condition the segregation of various kinds of people based on disparity. Through her well executed mixed media drawings, De Vos aims to depict the human body in its most fundamental form central to the human experience. De Vos calls for an emergence of a new lens of viewing and relating to one another, advocating for a move away from unjust theories and ideologies that have captivated the human experience for so long and encourages a softer approach to each other.

The elaborately rendered bodies of naked men and women appear on the foreground with a stark black background, reminiscent of the baroque’s application of chiaroscuro. She achieves further contrast through her use of mediums as she juxtapositions soft and hard mediums in one artwork, where the softness of charcoal is contrasted with the hardness of staples, copper and steel wool, creating a dynamic and multidimensional visual experience. Captured in interesting poses, her manipulation of the selected medium, creates beautiful notions of movement and autonomy. Her warm palette of oranges, yellows and browns invites and situates the viewer in a gaze, one not sexualised or idolised but one of appreciation and adoring of the depicted human body in its purest form.

The imagery of the scarf included not only serves to marry the human experience as individuality is taken away from the persons rendered, but also tells of the red theory of fate emanating from Chinese mythology where it is believed that everyone has specific people that they are inherently connected and tied to with an invisible red thread, that speaks to the notion of material (cloth and thread) as a connecting element of humanity.

Her work serves as an expansive exploration and display of the ties that binds us in human form because as different as we may seem, we are ultimately all connected through our varied physical forms and our universal human experience.