William Kentridge

William Kentridge is an artist from South Africa who is best known for his animated films. He also produces prints, drawings and sculptures. His work first started to come to prominence in the early 1970's and he is still producing works of art today, with sculptures that he had created being unveiled in 2012 and 2013. William Kentridge’s animations are not made in the more traditional way of having each scene on a separate print. Instead the changes to the images in the animation are made by making alterations to the same sheet of paper. This creates something quite unique, as it is sometimes possible to still see previous scenes which have been erased as you watch the animation. This single piece of paper is then displayed as a piece of art in its own right. Even though it is William Kentridge’s animated films that he is most well known for, drawing and printmaking are still the foundation of all his other artworks. Although his works don't contain abstract thoughts and emotions, he does not believe that the things that he draws have to be completely accurate. He does however always produce his drawings based on something tangible that he has observed. William Kentridge usually uses bronze for his sculpting work, and his first public sculpture was unveiled in his home town of Johannesburg in 2012, with another one soon appearing in Naples in the same year. In 2013 he created Rebus, which was unique in the fact that two distinct images could be seen, depending on the angle that you were viewing it.