Jozua Gerrard crafts immersive animation in collaboration with BMW South Africa

M World is an animated artwork by artist Jozua Gerrard, commissioned by Southern Guild in collaboration with BMW South Africa. Laser projected onto a stationary M4 Competition car, the animation immersed viewers in a colour-infused fantasy world populated by Gerrard’s masked characters and inspired by the iconic tri-colour logo of the BMW M brand. Varied in its visual referencing, the animation proved to be an entirely unique and immersive experience for the select audience. The production included a soundtrack with original vocals by Cape Town-based hip-hop artist Kai Thursday, animation by Fabian Humphry and Megan Bagshaw, and laser technology by Cape Lasers.

The release of the film marked the start of an exciting period for the artist. Gerrard participated in an international art fair for the first time. The artist featured new works in Southern Guild’s booth at Untitled Art, 2022. The fair took place over the course of Miami Art Week and was open to the public from November 29 to December 3, 2022.

Contemporary artist Jozua Gerrard was born in 2001 in Cape Town, South Africa. His work walks a line between existentialism and nihilism, touching on a range of themes including mental health, religion, sexual identity, and contemporary urban youth culture. He is heavily influenced by his personal experiences and is fascinated by ordinary life, often depicting scenes of the everyday in his work, which he refers to as "little windows into people’s existence".

Gerrard began his exploration with art when he was 10, with his evolving craft becoming an important outlet and coping mechanism. In contrast to the sense of unease in his paintings, his colours are vibrant and enticing, creating a taught duality—a theme that runs throughout Gerrard's work. His work is filled with contradictions: brash and ethereal, carnal and innocent, menacing and tender. His bright, horned mask is a signature motif, conveying multiple symbolic meanings for the artist. He describes this mask as an attempt to reclaim the notion of ‘primitivism’ from colonialist appropriation by placing it in an everyday, contemporary context. The mask allows the wearer to skew or hide their identity, giving them the space to be more than one thing simultaneously.

“It’s like you’re saying ‘It’s me, but I’m still hiding’,” he explains, conceding that all the masked figures – both male and female – are projections of himself. This asserts Gerrard’s fluidity and his conscious moving away from restrictive labels often imposed on individuals, an entrenched societal inclination. The wearer becomes faceless, non-specific and emotionless, and in turn, gains access to a new reality: the one Gerrard creates. The mask is supernatural in this imaginary world, providing a protective shield for and against emotions, both external and internal.