Etchings, Graphic arts/ Rodney Benn, the male artist who cared about South Africa.

                   Rodney Benn the male artist who cared about South Africa.

 

PS/ Click on any photograph and scroll along in the original size!

I acquired some of his titled works through his Dutch widow;

• To Mother providence

• Onward, symbol of hope

• Skukasu (Bring about changes)

• Suffering Solitude

• Ben’s Eye

• Memory of a child grown death

• Tears for Fertility

• Ben’s Cross

• Night Sirens

When I saw the deeply pressed etchings, almost looking like

woodcuts, I was grasped by deep emotions! ‘This is the work

of a woman in suffering’, but Rodney is a male name. Benn,

the familyname is too!

 

                                                                    Above/Ben's Cross

Couldn’t find anything on the internet, think it has not been

documented so well that it is already digitalised. But I felt,

this must be shown, this work touches the hearts of those

who recognise the beauty in the sufferings, expressed so

well.

                                                     Above/ Ben's Eye

The works probably date from the early 50ies beginning

sixties, during a boiling apartheids-time !

I digitised some tourist pictures from the late seventies and

in those times one could find plenty signs, ‘niet voor zwarten’

or ‘for whites only’. The works breathe a rare quality.(The etching issues where mostly drafted not more than 20.

Of the above mentioned, I acquired of each 2 signed and

handwritten and numbered pieces.)

                                    Above/Memory of a child grown death

This is not so long ago. Imagine yourself growing up in this

hatred apartheid system, surely it has left it’s marks on

anyone from that time , place and period, no matter the

backgrounds. Logical that in some of them resistance against this climate would grow with being raised in it.

Rodney surely must have seen enough of it and suffered from it, hence the ominous catchy titles as “Tears for fertility” if one has hunger, fertility will surely be an issue. Even though,

not reading the titles it says it all; Skukasu -see title page-

(Bring about changes), a mother and child, breaking through

a wall and leaving the bricks behind for the wrongdoing

militias with guns.Ben’s Cross.Poverty.Or thinking about Ben‘s Cross, he is a slave, an unfree person,

wants to change but is chained, it is a cross, which crosses

you, which burdens you just as in Christ’s cross procession,

one cannot stop this misery from happening.

 

                                

Above/ Night Sirens

The beautifully expressed darkness of this imprisoned Self in

a small room in the dark. Darkness from guilt? Darkness of

being unfree or oppressed, poverty? Who decides who is

getting a baby and who is not, Providentia? Food, a good

neighbour, true Love or God ? You can sense the feeling of

injustice, doubt, anger. All this desolation can be found in

Night Sirens, no sleep from worries and misery.

 

Above/ Onward, a symbol of Hope

Hope Searched - Poem by Madrason writer;

God in this

Universe

I urge you

to please send

Notification

and too respect

our feedback

hear my call

might fall

for i am left

in disillusion

please don't dress

me with neglect

or in confusion

if i offer

unto You

my All! M

Good enough for acting in a tourist freak-show, but to sit in a

restaurant next to a White? 

 

An exotic muse for the Western eyes. See, here we arrive at

a work called Ben’s eye. I wonder what was going on here? Could his seed of love not be prolongated by life! Was he desperate to procreate love but things blocked this from happening. The bird standing on water guarding an egg-crosspreventing the “underworld” seed to reach it. The water, the deep symbols of reflections of the unconscious.

Baby Cries - Poem by Madrason writer

Baby cries, baby cries

when I moved my eyes

to look at her

all of a sudden Smiles! M

Having to miss this all. Did Rodney love a lady who wanted

so eagerly his child? Was it a mere protest of against the

abuse of women in South Africa or in general.

Questions of my speculative mind. I do not know Rodney, or

should I call him Ben? But one thing I know for sure, he

touched me, almost thinking he was a she. A feminine

stroke. A deep and detailed etching of reality. He wanted

a family so eagerly but I guess He couldn’t, such agony...

Mercy

I am crying from pain

etchings in my brain

how can we live and love

and hence rise above

this world of misery

.........................

crying, for..why do we need to live

while our children are dying. M

Rodney Benn standing up for women (and men) in (general)

South Africa, suffering solitude! Or felt left alone for

himself? Discretion has its place right here.

The works of art from his hands and inspiration speak for

themselves. Everyone deserves a family of his, her own, no

one should be left alone. Fertility is not something one takes

or thinks as for granted for anyone, it is a gift, but it can

result in suffering too!

Madrason, Bois le Duc, The Netherlands, saturday23 feb 2017

On this blog, 15 september 2020 M