My understanding of colonial art has been gradual. I feel a bit like I came in the back door once the party had started with my enquiry. I realise now it began with an interest in post-colonial art, contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare, Chris Ofili, Kara Walker and Isaac Julien to name a few. As a daughter of colonialism myself (my parents were a WWII British army captain married to a daughter of South Africa with deep family roots and heritage), I’ve often been confused about my identity. Am I British or South African; how do I reconcile my heritage and history from two wildly different countries, histories and cultures?

I looked up a definition of colonial art and Study Smarter defines it as “It refers to art created in territories under the control of a foreign colonial power, typically characterised by blending European styles of perspective and realism with local indigenous influences.” This may seem a bit dry, but I get the point. I then looked up post-colonial art and The Tate describes it as a “style of art (which) analyses and responds to the cultural legacies of colonialism and the human consequences of controlling a country in order to exploit the native people and their land.” The Tate doesn’t pull their punches.

Colonialism has a dark history, it’s undeniable. David Olusoga explains in his BBC series Empire how England became very wealthy and built her magnificent navy on the back of it. Prior to that, England was quite poor; she has few natural resources and wouldn’t have qualified to be part of a G7 as she is now. It’s hard not to feel angry when looking at such behaviour nowadays especially when the perpetrator is so well respected and wealthy. How do we reconcile such dark deeds with more modern, current day thinking.

In interview with Africa News, Shonibare says:

Historic colonial statues should not be destroyed but reimagined… People are talking about the idea of knocking statues down because of the colonial history of those figures. I felt the best approach is not to knock them down in the same way as you wouldn’t go into a library and burn the books you didn’t like. It’s better to preserve history and for people to understand what Queen Victoria did, what Churchill did. My approach is to improve them, to actually make them more beautiful.

Artist Marissa Weatherhead spent a large part of her formative years in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, where her father was a planter on the tea estates in  the 1960s. You can easily see Ceylon’s cultural influences in her paintings of flowers, birds and still life studies; the stylisation, the outlining, the patterning and rhythm. Marissa is reluctant to talk about her colonial roots and influences because of its connection to slavery and appropriation. She says:

Nowadays we don’t talk about that because it harks back to colonialism and imperialism… it’s not something I tend to talk about.

She’s not alone. I remember being reluctant to admit I was South African when visiting London during the 1980s. Everyone I met seemed to think all white South Africans were racist. My South African heritage is a vital part of me, and Ceylon is a vital part of Marissa. To really understand her work, you need that piece of the puzzle.

How do we move past the pain. Shonibare uses vibrant African textiles to distract us. It lets light into the discussion. Francis Bacon did similar; he’d often say in interview that his intention was always to make beautiful paintings from difficult subjects. Perhaps that’s what art sometimes helps us to do: to digest and process the ugly. Like mushrooms on a forest floor.