About

Henry James once wrote of Paris as a jewel, a city where what “seemed all surface one moment seemed all depth the next.” The same might be said for the ecstatic portraits of Nelson Makamo: rather than capture a single aspect of his subjects, he reveals their many facets, changed by the cast of light or by who is looking. In drawings, watercolors, monotypes, and oil paintings, the Johannesburg-based artist portrays children—his young cousin Mapule Maoto as well as strangers and acquaintances, often from his native province of Limpopo, South Africa—in all the complexity with which he encounters …