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| Born Izak Benjamin de Villiers in 1951, the artist grew up in Pretoria, a member of a typical middle class Afrikaner family. His father was a senior government official. Zak was sent to Sunday school and Volksspele, belonged to the Voortrekker movement, and signed up as a member of the Nationalist Party Youth Movement. The discrepancies between the Christian values taught at church and the policies of the Nationalist government, and their expression in the status-seeking materialist Afrikaner middle class made him rebel against his background, and drop out of university where he was studying Building Management. After doing various jobs (clerk in a municipal office, railway stoker, fitter on a construction site) and living in Europe for a year, he returned to University and completed a BA Fine Arts degree. In his final year he won the New Signatures Award for Graphics. Benjamin taught art from time to time, privately and at various institutions. Since 1991 he has been able to work as an artist full-time. His work is represented in collections internationally. In the mid nineteen-eighties, Benjamin experienced a profound religious conversion that led to his friendship with sculptor Gert Swart. Together they struggle to discover what it means to make contemporary art as Christians, and have collaborated in various projects. Since 1992 the artist has signed his work Zak Benjamin, a shortened version of his full name, in order to avoid being confused with the Izak de Villiers, the editor of Rapport. The latter is a daily newspaper that did not condemn Barend Strydom, a right-wing activist who shot down in cold blood a number of black people at Strydom Square in Pretoria. The artist married his wife Erna Buber-deVilliers in 1988. They live in Vereeniging, South Africa. They have two daughters and two granddaughters. Zak makes use of a very personal iconography in his characteristic fantasy paintings. Throughout his career, he has also made works t | 21 ZAK PENTECOST.jpg | |
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| Résolution: 600 x 644 | |
| Nombre total d'images: 111 | Dernière mise à jour: 11/03/09 09:09 | Créé avec JAlbum 7.0 & Chameleon | Aide | |