47 SNIPPETS OF MY EARLY MEMORIES CHAPTER THREE Snippets of my early memories: David Koloane’s Made in South Africa as landscape, still life and portrait Kent Williams and Stacey Vorster S outh African artist, critic and curator, David Koloane, recalls snippets of his child- hood in 1940s and 1950s Johannesburg: I grew up in Alexandra township and one thing I remember is that there used to be no street lights and we used to use candles to study in the evening. So one time we were invited by a school that was near the city that was part of the mining town, it was a small housing project for black people, the accommodation there was much more comfortable than in other townships … So we went there to perform and it was night time and for the irst time we saw a township that had street lights and lights inside the houses and everything was alight and I never forgot the wonderland we had coming from that dark location to see other black people living in comparative luxury. So I think I have always been haunted by that dark side of my early years, where there were no street lights and it was pitch dark … and actually the pseudonym of the township was ‘dark city’ because there were no street lights. So I think it’s also partly those early memories that were coming back now and I felt I had to deal with them. So you know I feel I am fortunate enough that I can deal with FIGURE 1 David Koloane, Made in South Africa (Braziers), 1994, oil pastel on paper, (w) 42 x (h) 29 cm. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum). PHOTOGRAPHER: LIZ WHITTER (2016)