The Foster Gang forms part of a visual art research project centred on the historical stratification and hybridity of a post-colonial landscape known as the Cradle of Humankind. The project includes drawings, paintings, sculptures and photography relating to en-situ research at Swartkrans, Cooper’s, and Plovers Lake (three of the Cradle of Humankind sites) under the initial guidance of Christina Steininger of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at Wits (BPI).

The Foster Gang is  a collection of ‘fossil’ cameras in sculptural format. The son of a failed gold prospector himself, Younge is intrigued by the web of deceit, intrigue and plain crookedness that built the City of Gold. This ‘family portrait’ of the infamous brigand and his associates, along with his vellum ‘bokkie’ Peggy (see below), points to a hominoid conundrum—are we the hunters, or the hunted?  ’This is Younge’s forté, to treat history as a story not yet fully told.’
Mark Read, Foreword, Gavin Younge [Cradle Snatcher], 2010.

Peggy. 2010. Vellum, resin cast, bamboo. 180 x 130 x 86 cm (Photo: G. Younge)

For sale throughEverard Read Gallery – 011 788 4805 or 021 418 4527

Flight Delayed. 2010. Vellum, oxhide, plywood, styrofoam. 65 x 184 x 55 cm (Photo: G. Younge)

For sale throughEverard Read Gallery – 011 788 4805 or 021 418 4527

Angola was the final horizon over which the terror of South African state militarism appeared. For thousands of young white conscripts, and their African opponents, it was also the scene of catastrophic emotional and physical wounding. Even today, a decade after the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, to say ‘Angola’ is to conjure up a time of pathological, horrific warfare exported to civilian populations, and in most conscripts, a profound, far-reaching guilt about their involvement in genocidal state aggression. Even for the most extreme South African officers, who completed their Angolan service with apparent relish, and for whom crossing the Cunene River was a first step towards later atrocities, Angola was debilitating.

Gavin Younge has concerned himself with the problem of violence and representation for almost two decades. As one of South Africa’s most innovative sculptors, he has explored the traces left by violence in society at large. In our country, it is as though a catastrophic wind has been blowing a long while, and we stand now in the eerie calm after its passing, confronting an endless, sandstone landscape of distorted Aeolian forms. For sculptors like Younge, representing the effects of this mutilating force requires a variety of expressive languages, and an indirectness of approach.- David Bunn.

Excerpt from Prosthesis—Artwork by Gavin Younge the Decade 1997–2007. La Noire Galerie, Paris. 2007, pp. 29–30.