THE associations between life and death are at the heart of Janet Solomon’s exhibition Green Screen which can be viewed at the Durban Art Gallery until June 28.

Speaking about the exhibition, which includes photographs and paintings, Solomon says that she is comparing the use of green screen in the digital world to the way in which museums traditionally display groups of people or animals in dioramas.

“The diorama is a construction similar to a stage set housed in a glass showcase and is intended to give a context to the reconstructed humans and animals,” she says. “This results in a false sense of reality, comparable to how the green screen manipulates the digital image.”

Photographed images of taxidermied animals trapped in artificial situations are accompanied by paintings of living people and creatures in natural environments and the ravages and threats of climate change and other ecological destruction.

The juxtapositions between the frozen moments of history and the ravages of the present examine ideas of freedom and entrapment and question how we look at the distance between object and subject.

Green Screen is Solomon’s fifth solo show and comprises of over 30 works created between 2011 and 2014.

Also at the gallery is Suikerbossie/Sugarbush, a one-woman show by Durban artist Janet Solomon, which interrogates Afrikaner culture and identity.

This grappling with identity is placed in the context of her family history and life experiences through video, digital collages, performance, drawing, ceramics, mixed media and sculptural installation.

“This interrogation forms part of a critical transformative inquiry which explores the death, rebirth and growth of my personal identity through art practice,” Maurel says.

“It is through writing and telling our stories we use the power of narratives to deconstruct and reconstruct new identities, in order to begin to heal.

“I have been struggling against Afrikaner myths and beliefs, such as the Afrikaner as the chosen people and the authority of the patriarch.

“Twenty years of democracy has brought about a multi-cultural environment, which is very different from that which existed when I grew up during apartheid. It has provided a space for a metamorphosis of my personal identity through an interrogation of Afrikaner culture and identity in my art practice.”

• The Durban Art Gallery (DAG) is open Monday to Saturday from 8.30 am until 4 pm, and Sundays from 11 am to 4 pm. Entry is free. Inquiries: 031 311 2264/9. The DAG is on the second floor of the Durban City Hall building. Enter opposite the Playhouse.