Ricky Dyaloyi

Born Cape Town on the 8th August 1974 Dyaloyi is surely one of South Africa´s most promising young painters. Drawn to art as a young boy drawing and sketching anything and everything, he attended art classes for two to three hours everyday after school. Today, aged 30, his restrained palette could be that of a man twice his age and experience.

Living in Khayelitsha, Dyaloyi paints with an uncanny determination, trying to unravel the mysteries of the human condition through his medium. Rubbing sand into his oil paints and using mostly untreated canvases or rough board his work resonates his environment and subjects.

His work fits into a broader genre of South African painting, which has its roots in the Thupelo programme. Dyaloyi´s imagery began to crystallise around the time of South Africa´s First Democratic Elections. He pays special attention to the South African context and hopes to highlight "… the black people´s level of existence." Thought provoking, powerful, at times poignant in subject matter, one can look at his art as "Neon neo-township" - ordinary citizens rendered in heightened colours, larger than life. He prays that his images will bring about understanding.

Education

1988 Part time art classes at C.A.P. (Community Arts Project)
Centre for African Studies (University of Cape Town - U.C.T)

He began as early as 1989 participating in workshops and exhibitions including:

C.A.P. Group Show
Centre for African Studies (University of Cape Town – U.C.T)
Oxford University – “Zabalaza” Exhibition
South African National Gallery, Cape Town
1998 Solo Exhibition – The Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town
2001 Solo Exhibition – The Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town.
2003 Solo exhibition - Everard Read , Johannesburg
2004 “10” - Celebrating ten years of Democracy (an exhibition arising from a collaborative workshop with ten other artists from all walks of life, based in Cape Town)
2005 Solo Exhibition – Everard Read, Cape Town
2006 ‘Small works’ – Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘The City’ – group show, Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘Dyaloyi & Sekete’ – Everard Read, Cape Town
2009 ‘Sex, Power, Money’ – group show, Everard Read, Cape Town
2010 ‘View from the South’ – group show, Everard Read, Cape Town
2010 ‘Khumalo, Mzimba, Dyaloyi’ – three man show, Everard Read, Cape Town
2011 ‘Isifuba Siphandle’, solo exhibition at Everard Read, Cape Town
2011 15th Anniversary, Everard Read, Cape Town
2012 'Noma Kanjani', Gallery Momo, Johannesburg

From the Artist

“Art is the means by which I express myself in relation to the world. The possibility of articulating and defining my life through art is challenging and exciting.

I work mainly in mixed media exploring relationships in interplay of colour and texture, contracts of rough texture ground sand,washes, wide and vibrant plains, smooth surfaces on canvas. The use of tools, patterns, signs often have symbolic significance in my work.

My artwork documents the people I see around me in South Africa, I simply comment on life as I know it. I usually comment on society, poverty, the dilemma of industrialization, urbanization, irony of daily living and middle class values. I work figuratively to illustrate messages and historical events. I hope these artistic images will bring about understanding amongst the nations and also facilitate social change.

People are made up of values and these values are governed by our beliefs, which determine our outlook on life and how we read and perceive others.

In this modern day, values that that used to govern our society have deteriorated and somehow have lost their true meaning and substance. As people migrate from rural life to the cities in search of work and better life the adoption of new behavior patterns and values, what is the result?

What is a black man achieving under these modern conditions? The Prophet is here to remind people that this life is not all about material fame and money. We have greater elements in our own lives that is more valuable than that. Life is about patience, faithfulness, endurance, clear conscience, clean heart and pure mediation. He questions what society lays down as norms, look for meaning,provide by which man orders his life. Question the exercise of authority and power and tradition, so that people within society can become aware of other realities and possibilities. The Prophet is there to remind people of that transcendent side which underlies or overlays human activity. He is the man of goodwill and of value.

The composition of this painting is divided into two,the upper plain shows a figure holding an umbrella over the heard, deep in thought and burning concern. The figure is surrounded by chromatic blur of orange which is symbolic of chaotic and disorderly situation. The lower plain shows a spade on an off-white square patch, symbolic of work to be done in the world that needs change.”

Ricky Dyaloyi