Post-2000, Nel concentrated on crockery as a still-life motif stereotypically associated with domesticity and feminine identity.
While Nel’s earlier work frequently features the tea cup as a recurring device symbolising the domestic sphere, in these later renditions, completed in the mid-2000s, they are fractured, fragmented and overturned — suggestive of some earlier physical or psychological violence. The spillage and subsequent staining that results from this disturbance seem to imply a loss of control or, perhaps, blood. This inference is especially relevant in light of the national increase in, and normalisation of violent crime, especially that of sexual assault, since South Africa’s political transition in 1994.
"The fractured cup represents the enduring and irreversible effects of violence on the human psyche - whether a physical assault at the hands of a stranger or emotional abuse meted out by an intimate relation."
In an attempt at order, broken shards are sometimes arranged by size – an act that reveals the residual, exponential nature of trauma, where physical aftermath is often the only evidence of an otherwise undocumented narrative. When read in reverse, these sequences also suggest the debilitating processes of physical or mental deterioration.
Key Work
Fragments, 2009.
Acrylic on canvas, 100 cm x 100 cm (quadriptych)
Nel’s use of the teacup as a symbol of domesticity dates back to 1970, where it was first introduced in Tea Time I. Recurring in many subsequent canvases, the device has primarily been used to signify the delicate nature of the modern nuclear family structure, and more specifically the vulnerability of female identity within this domestic sphere. In certain works, empty crockery may also be interpreted as the debris of colonial influence which, under new political circumstances, are rendered obsolete.
In Fragments, Nel presents us with a series of four canvases, each depicting a tea cup damaged to varying degrees. The residue of their contents spills out over the surface beneath, the colour of the stain somehow reminiscent of blood loss – indicative of assault or perhaps even of menses. The representation of overturned or broken glassware and crockery has its origin in Dutch vanitas painting – such as Willem Claesz Heda’s Still life with Oysters, a Rummer, a Lemon and a Silver Bowl (1634) – as a symbol of the transience of mortal existence and sexual purity. Read in context of South Africa’s much-publicised homicide and sexual assault statistics, this 17th century symbolism takes on a far more tragic modern interpretation.
Fall, 2009.
Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 60 cm (diptych)
Fall may be considered as a transitional piece bridging two periods in Nel’s output – her studies of shattered crockery, and her most recent explorations of wrapped and decayed baked goods. Confectionery has played a symbolic role in Nel’s work as early as 1990, being featured in The Recollection and later postmodern pieces such as Picnic II (1997) and Shrine (1997), suggesting either the loss of innocence or the attempt at securing or maintaining social currency. “The party” has therefore surfaced throughout Nel’s career as a recurrent theme, typically as a paradoxical reference to the exclusionary nature of social and political orders. Here we are presented with a plate of iced cakes, captured immediately after an accidental fall. These baked goods inherently carry domestic and feminine associations – their damaged state implying either violation and abuse, or perhaps a subversion of normative gender roles and socio-political hegemony.