Art Africa Sessions #5: A material practice: Botswana earth pigments

Who owns the earth itself? Who owns culture? 

Artist Ann Gollifer discusses questions of land, appropriation and home via the engaged use of earth-based pigments in her practice.  A multidisciplinary artist, her own navigation of identity informs much of her work: she was born in a remote part of Guyana to British and Warao-Arawak parents, who travelled and worked widely during her childhood, and she has lived and worked in Gaborone, Botswana since 1985. The complex entanglements of history, place, identity and belonging are at the heart of her work, which draws on her South American, British and African heritage, and their shared histories of conquest and colonialism. 

Gollifer holds a Masters in History of Art from Edinburgh University (1983) and was a member of the Thapong Visual Art Centre, and co-founder with Maipelo Gabang, of the Artist Residency Centre, both in Gaborone. She has worked for the National Museum, Gaborone and the Phuthadikobo Museum in Mochudi, and her work has been widely exhibited and is held in major international collections including the British Museum and Triangle International Art Workshops.  She is represented by the Guns and Rain gallery in Johannesburg.

Image: Ann Gollifer MOTSEI- a life size portrait in Botswana earth pigments from on paper 2021. Studio image: ANN GOLLIFER.