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A luminous and thickly built up green strip separates two symmetrical gate-like panels. The strip functions as a liminal moment in which we as viewers are held in the possibilities of some other place. The layering of recognizable imagery/symbols such as '731', a key lock, a cell window, the letter R, and speckled yellow light which resembles the curve of a shoulder, serve to disrupt the symmetry of the rest of the composition. Due to the haziness of the paint application, there’s an elusiveness involved in the act of looking. Based on the orientation/proximity of the viewer to the piece surface textures flicker in and out of view.

Gate To Robben Island

Idris Young

Oil, Sand, Encaustic, Dorland's Wax, and Reflective Mylar on Canvas mounted on Wood Panels

Undergraduate
With specific reference to the infamous Robben Island prison which operated during apartheid South Africa, Gate To Robben Island(2024) attempts to capture the tensions of a black fugitivity that oscillates between exterior and interior, action and inaction.