Faith47

Faith47 (born Cape Town, 1979) is a South African artist who has held solo exhibitions in New York (2015),London (2014) and Johannesburg (2012). Faith47 began painting in 1997, three years after the end of apartheid. Using a wide range of media, her approach is explorative and substrate appropriate – from found and rescued objects, to time-layered and history-textured city walls, to studio-prepared canvas and wood. A self-taught artist, Faith47 is widely regarded as one of the most famous South African street artists, although her art has reached international fame. Faith47 is also one of the most famous female street and graffiti artists in the world. As both a notable South African and woman street artist, Faith47 speaks both to female and Third World issues, a unique position compared to most street artists.

Common themes across Faith47's work include sacred and mundane spaces as well as political problems, from environmental destruction, border abolition, and humanitarian issues. Compositional motifs include women such as angels, lady liberty, and African mothers with children on their back. These female figures speak to women's issues such as motherhood and the feminization of poverty. Her art and rich symbolism speaks to South African issues of injustice, poverty, and inequality. Her murals are often referred to as post-apartheid, as they confront the failure of neo-liberal politics of the South African Freedom Charter in violent and impoverished townships in South Africa. Some of her works were often associated with religion. In one of Faith47's books she writes, "I am not religious but I pray through my work to unknown devils and gods. I look for my soul in colors and empty my being through parables of rusted, lost metal doors." She also has mentioned in an interview her process in which she feels religious spirits, "In empty buildings that felt like spiritual experiences, exploring holy chambers of neglected architecture... finding something so beautiful in what society disregards, and bringing to life that which usually people throw away or ignore."

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