Above: William Kentridge  I am not me 2010  Photogravure  Courtesy of Annandale Galleries, Sydney

William Kentridge (born 1955, lives and works in Johannesburg) is one of the most critically acclaimed and widely popular artists in the world today. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held in major museums across South Africa, Australia, Europe, Canada and the United States. He has developed a highly distinctive art practice, where the hand and the body of the artist are constantly evident in drawing, printmaking, sculpture, performance and the animations — or what he calls ‘stone-age filmmaking’ — for which he is famous.

This selection of Kentridge’s works draws on several recent series that demonstrate the breadth of his research and visual enquiry. From the colonial and apartheid histories of South Africa, the experimental art and music of the early 20th century Russian avant-garde, to intimate images of himself and his studio, Kentridge is an artist whose images are acute observations of the world and his place in it. They are poignant, humanist, mysterious and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

Kentridge is preoccupied with the ways people see. His studio and exhibitions could be considered as a type of laboratory, where image fragments and ideas converge to propose a new way of seeing and understanding the transient state of things, or the marks, scars and
signs that we leave behind us.

Kentridge delves into political events using powerful poetic allegory. His drawings, prints, performance and animation have inspired generations — once seen not easily forgotten.