All My Books Have Faded Spines

“Has the pen or pencil dipped so deep in the blood of the human race as the needle?” asked South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual, Olive Schreiner.

Embroidery as an act of radical engagement is a continual source of fascination for artist Areez Katki. Through mark-making on domestic cloth, Areez pursues ways to contest dominant modes of storytelling.

For his first solo exhibition at McLeavey Gallery, Areez has drawn from rich pools of familial biomythography (weaving together of history, myth and biography) to explore themes of migration, cultural hybridity, loss and assimilation.

“I pulled out a book with a sun-faded spine. The sensation of saying the words out loud led me to question and take inventory of my own relationship with documented and archived material. The effects relinquished over generations and multiple migrations — the physical and cultural material that, when subjected to new environments, may wither and fade.”