Rogge presents ‘Normal NOT Normal’

JO Rogge considers the boundaries and intricacies of normal, reflects on queer love and intimacy and fashions maps of belonging in ‘Normal NOT Normal’, a multifarious collection recently on show at The Project Room.

Concerned with the personal, the political and the public, Rogge depicts three strains of not normal as the artist alters their technique and visual language to give life to ideas of identity, love and acceptance.

“Nothing is normal and yet we would like it to be,” says Rogge. “For me, being queer, being non-binary, I am considered not normal by many.”

While the concept of normal is inherently subjective – both in South Africa, where the artist resides, and in Namibia, where the artist once lived, created award-winning art and which they called home – normal is rooted in the restrictive precepts of heteronormative, patriarchal Christianity.

Deviations from these norms are often met with hostility, discrimination and even violence, yet in ‘Normal NOT Normal’, Rogge’s response is primarily delicate, human and even humorous.

In the artist’s ‘Blueprint Series’, Rogge makes use of carbon transfers on Fabriano to depict the blue blush of love in all its nudity, sensitivity and sweetness. Rogge’s images of flowers, birds and tiny figures diving off knees connote halcyon days but anemones, stinging polyps that attach themselves to rocks and ensnare passing fish, hint at the flip side of love.

Images of tattooed legs and heads in swimming caps and goggles in a second series push back at stereotypes about lesbians, especially in the wake of the recent upsurge of allies responding to current court cases stemming from within Namibia’s LGBTQ+ community.

“I decided to debunk some lesbian myths for people who are trying their best to understand what it means to be queer,” says Rogge. Tongue-in-cheek pieces titled “No, we’re not looking at you in the locker room” and “No we don’t all like cats” aim to correct long-held beliefs while Rogge’s ‘Map Series’ considers notions of belonging and loss.

In this collection, Rogge embellishes a selection of their father’s nautical maps of unknown places with personal symbology before overlaying them with deconstructed vintage South African road maps.

Rogge’s showcase includes two pieces of embroidery, namely ‘Marji de Angola’ and ‘Devilish Durban’.

Bar the embroidery, the artist intentionally sticks to the colour blue to minimise distraction and keep the focus on the technical and conceptual aspects of the work.

Keenly felt, artfully activist and dexterously rendered ‘Normal NOT Normal’ was on show at The Project Room from 2 to 16 October.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com