MJ Taupin
Laetitia Lups The passenger
This series of photographs were all taken in a car while traveling and being away from home. We are travellers of space, time and experience. The car embodies something that is moving and denotes a destination. Cars are a symbolism for power and our materialistic world. The destination can be fun and can symbolise freedom. Yet, being in a car is being confined or trapped in a small space while everything outside is moving and changing. Who is driving? Being a passenger is different than for the one in the driver’s seat. The passenger gives a human face to an individual soul. I distinguish between states of being asleep and being awake. It suggests states of conscious and unconsciousness. Are we the masters of our own reality? Am I the passenger or the driver of the car? Do we see things the way we want to see it and recollect events the way we want or need to remember it? In a way we are gods in our own little universe, driving on a road destined, planned or just randomly ending up somewhere planned or unplanned. I am looking at ways to understand our existence but going beyond a specific place, time and space. These photographs are an illusional universe where I question the world through my immediate location and the eyes of my children. I change the appearance of the photograph, which is already a screen of reality. Where do our ordinary lives end and where does spiritualty begin? The line is blurred in life as it is in the picture.
SCHOOLING 1992 Grade 12 Klerksdorp
TERTIARY EDUCATION 1996 Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) University of the Free Sate
TERTIARY EDUCATION 2011 Bachelor of Arts (Health Science and Social Services) Unisa
Currently Completing Bachelor of Art Honours in Psychology
ART – GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 Kalahari Charity auction, Johannesburg
2004 Perspective 30 Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Bloemfontein
1999 Perspective 2 Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Bloemfontein
1997 Outskirts No. 4 Market Theatre, Johannesburg
1996 Print Exchange with four Universities from Britain and U.S.A. Technicon of the Free State