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Joburg artist returns home from the Amazon with an urgent appeal

Joburg artist returns home from the Amazon with an urgent appeal
Artwork from the exhibition 'The Last Hope' by Peter Mammes (Supplied by the artist)
Diana Neille
By Diana Neille
30 Jul 2024
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London-based South African artist Peter Mammes’ new show in Johannesburg, The Last Hope, opening on August 1, is a call to action to rethink humanity’s approach to how and why we exist on our planet, and beyond.

During a month-long artists’ residency in Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon in May 2024, Krugersdorp-born artist Peter Mammes (38) and a colleague were presented with an opportunity few outsiders have ever experienced: t0 venture out by boat with a local resident and his family, and live for several days in the rainforest. 

Visiting tiny, isolated communities floating on tributaries along the mighty river; eating hunted meat; making shelters; living “rough” by the standards of a well-travelled Johannesburger residing and working in London — for Mammes, the experience was life changing. 

Artwork from the exhibition The Last Hope by Peter Mammes (Supplied by the artist)



A feeling of both loss and urgency settled within him in this “magical realm”, as he came to view it — sadness as a person at the Global North’s growing disconnect from its spiritual and communal roots, and its place within the natural world. Urgency as an artist to communicate the need to find and reconnect to those roots, before they are no longer able to bind us to each other, or to our world. 

‘Unbelievably capable’


“(Our guide) was so unbelievably capable, even in a deeply hostile, dangerous environment where everything wants to bite you or eat you or kill you,” said Mammes. 

“I was struck by the fact that, in so many ways, how (the indigenous people of the Amazon) live now is the way our forefathers lived. But I can’t do any of the things this man could do out there. He was taught by his father, and now he’s teaching his children. But (Westerners) have lost those abilities,” he said.  

“To be honest, I yearn for that... (For the) values of, ‘I’m responsible for you, you’re responsible for me, and we’re responsible for our impact on nature.’” 

An artwork from Peter Mammes' The Last Hope exhibition. (Supplied by the artist)



Mammes’ new show in Johannesburg, The Last Hope, opening on August 1, is a call to action to rethink humanity’s approach to how and why we exist on our planet, and beyond. 

His new works are a culmination of many years spent searching for ways to depict that yearning he feels to connect to humankind’s roots — “those original ideas”, as he calls them — which he views as the key to mending a global ecology torn apart by mindless excess, human supremacy and its mantra of growth for growth’s sake. 

What Canadian theoretical ecology Professor Michel Loreau calls the “divorce between humans and nature”.  Even the indigenous people of the Amazon have fallen prey to over-consumption, Mammes says, killing more animals than they need; more than can feasibly replace themselves. 

“We can pretend that things have progressed, but a lot of our old ideas, perhaps we need to relitigate. To be more realistic, and stop letting ideology lead us to insanity,” Mammes said. 

“This is the conversation that I’d like to further with the work.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7vJHlYyCnq/

A Boldness of Form and Function


Over the past two decades since he finished his only formal training in drawing and painting — five years of high school at the National School of the Arts — Mammes’ prolific practice has grown in both skill and form. 

With his first and primary love — drawing — as his foundation, Mammes has generated an evolving, varied but coherent body of works he refers to as hieroglyphs. Representative images, collected, researched and rendered over years of travel; drawn from nature, from cultural symbolism and decorative patterns or uniquely human traits and representations. 





Artworks from The Last Hope. (Supplied by the artist)



These he drafts in signature style on paper until perfected, then keeps catalogued, like precious clippings, or old photographs — relics to return to again and again, or incorporate for the first time after many years. It has become something of a spiritual practice in and of itself. 

“With drawing, the rules should always be the same, so that (the source material) never ends,” said Mammes. “After a certain amount of years as a working artist, sometimes I don’t even understand why I’m making a specific representation at that time. It’s as if there’s a different part of my brain that’s channelling something out there... I completely lose control of it — sometimes I don’t even understand it myself. And then five years later, I look at it again, and it fits in exactly with my new thinking.”

Mammes began this practice early in his career by visiting the Johannesburg Zoo as a youngster — before one could easily tap off a string of thoughtless photos into an iPhone app – observing the animals up close, documenting them and creating his formative hieroglyphs.

Reference library


From there, he studied mediaeval European woodcuts, then historical pattern-making and cultural iconography in India, Russia and Egypt, where he set up artist studios for months or years at a time, building up a reference library of relics to combine, offset and collage. 

With these drawings as his basis, the material and medium of his works have evolved from paper and canvas, gouache, lead and pen; to silver-plated hot rolled steel and cold cast resin sculptures that tarnish and deteriorate strategically over time. From humble paste-ups and neon silkscreen to full-wall murals; intricately beaded portraits; embroidered works; tufted rugs and even a one-off print using donated human ashes. By maintaining the discipline and familiarity of his core practice, Mammes has allowed himself the freedom to experiment widely with form and function. 



Artworks from the exhibition 'The Last Hope' by Peter Mammes. (Supplied by the artist)



His new body of work is at once more technological and more organic (in as much as industrial materials can be) than anything he has attempted before. The Last Hope features his hieroglyphs printed in rubber-like polyurethane, using a highly innovative technique involving polymer plates and liquid UV resin, framed on a 3D printed form. 

Developing this unique and unpredictable method has taken a considerable amount of investment and experimentation, but has led to some of his most striking renderings yet. 

“It’s been a really long journey to get to the point where I am now (with) this medium,” said Mammes. “And what I like about it is, the process is something that I can’t necessarily control 100%. I guess that’s where things get interesting: it’s the organic part of my work.” 

Unpredictability and impermanence


Unpredictability and impermanence are recurring themes in Mammes’ art, also consistently explored in both form and message, as he attempts to “capture the human spirit”, be that in a positive or negative light — “more likely, a mixture” he writes of his artistic philosophy on his website. “That is how we experience reality.” 

Nothing is more unpredictable or impermanent than life on a warming planet, orbiting around a slowly dying sun in an infinite universe. This is partly why Mammes subscribes to the Copernican principle, which states that earth is not at the centre of the universe, nor do humans occupy some privileged or particular place as observers within it. Our job, Mammes believes, is simply to experience and appreciate the wonders and improbabilities of existence. And his job is to try by all means to render that experience through his work.  

Read more: Intimate and full of humanity, Pieces of Me is food for the soul in a ritual of storytelling

The Last Hope is perhaps the closest he has come yet. The outcome of his polyurethane pieces, for example, is determined within the five minutes he has to produce the best possible image he can before the material sets, even though the mould he cast it in took many painstaking hours (and months of research and development) to make.  

“You can see the uncontrolled aspects, and I can’t go back and fix them. So it makes each work unique,” said Mammes. “Especially in our modern world, with digital art and computers, that natural variation, to me, is inviting the universe into the process — collaborating with the universe,” he said, adding with a laugh, “I hope that doesn’t sound crazy!”   

“I never believed in magic and spiritual stuff before, but since my trip to the Amazon I think I’ve shifted into a certain type of mindset,” said Mammes. “It’s a whole universe on its own, with so much to learn from. It truly opened a door to me.” DM

View Peter Mammes new body of work, The Last Hope, at Lizamore & Associates at the Fire Station, 16 Baker Street, Rosebank from August 1, 2024.

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