[dentifier] K2026-016

"Please don't get it twisted, the chocolate is just a metaphor." Shaun Motsi

In the series Untitled (Browns), Shaun Motsi paints the well-known German Ritter Sport hazelnut chocolate bar. From a distance, its undulating shapes and brown hues make it easily recognisable, but up close, that familiarity dissolves. The glossy surfaces give way to a loose, playful brushstroke, through which the motif slowly disperses into layered strokes of paint.

Motsi seeks the poetry between invisibility and "what you see is what you get". He uses chocolate as a deliberate shift towards opacity, a critique of the way the art world depicts and exploits Black bodies. With humour and gentleness, he offers an attractive substitute in place of the Black body, rather than showing it directly.

This humour and critique extend to the technical level as well. Motsi uses the Renaissance method of 'brunaille' or underpainting, which involves sketching out the image in inexpensive earth pigments before layering it with other, more valuable colours. Motsi breaks with classical painting conventions by exaggerating this technique: he applies an excess of brown paint in the underpainting and simply leaves it there, for all to see and admire. The humour is heightened further by the trompe-l'oeil effect, which entices the viewer with convincing realism and draws the eye across opulent, almost fetishistic surfaces.