Johan Stegman, The Male Gaze, Linocut, 2024

Dimensions: 31 x 30 cm

Johannesburg-based artist Johan Stegman describes his work as “using Charcoal, Etchings, and Explosions.” His practice draws on the aesthetic and technical traditions of etching and charcoal, rooted in the Renaissance and Romantic eras of Western classicism, to craft finely detailed, almost miniature narratives. These works serve as entry points into explorations of historical legacies and cultural fallacies.

Stegman often disrupts this classical sensibility by inserting iconography from popular culture, political figures, and South Africa’s wartime history. In doing so, he creates layered commentaries on the paradoxes of contemporary identity — particularly those informed by his Afrikaans upbringing. Themes of erasure, irony, and duality run through his work, prompting viewers to question the stories that shape cultural memory.

The Male Gaze distills these ideas into a bold linocut composition, confronting the politics of looking and the cultural weight of representation.