Dr Johan Thom a senior Fine Arts lecturer from the University of Pretoria is currently exhibiting at the Goodman Gallery Johannesburg.  Thom’s work is a mixture of irony, dark humour and light tragedy.  His work comments on the self as arbiter of knowledge and source of agency.

For Thom’s exhibition at Goodman gallery Johannesburg, The devil made me do it, he casts himself as a modern day Doctor Faustus, a seeker of knowledge at any cost.  However, this Faustian figure is decidedly an African, not merely a foreign vistor but the very embodiment of the hopes and fears of modern day Africa and its search for knowledge.

The body of work consists of a dozen sculptures with busts of Dr Faustus made out of builders foam and other found objects.  Each sculpture portrays a different persona seeking out the dangerous territories of its surroundings.  Thom also uses materials such as gold leaf, playing cards, ink and books to complete the depiction of these personas.

Thom was granted a Commonwealth scholarship to persue a PHD from the Slade school of Fine Art in 2008.  His PHD theme was Materiality in contemporary fine art.  In 2003 Thom exhibited works at the Venice Biennale and in 2012 participated in conferences and workshops at Dokumenta (13).

The exhibition will run from the 7^th of March until the 11^th of April.

For more information on the exhibition visit the Goodman Gallery website or contact the gallery by phoning:  011 788 1113.