Olakunle Bolawa’s The Restless Coast, presented by the Barbagelata Contemporary Art Foundation, offers a contemplative photographic meditation on Cape Town’s shoreline as a space of negotiation between movement and stillness, permanence and drift. Through restrained compositions and an acute sensitivity to atmosphere, Bolawa reframes the coastline as both geographic reality and psychological terrain, inviting viewers to inhabit the quiet tensions carried within the landscape.
Dolphin Beach
The exhibition might most powerfully be entered through the recurring image of kite surfers suspended across vast expanses of sky. These figures appear marginal at first glance, small gestures against overwhelming atmospheric space, yet they operate as the conceptual axis of the work. Their suspension within invisible currents of wind transforms them into metaphors for adaptation, vulnerability, and persistence. Bolawa’s compositional decision to allow sky to dominate the frame is not merely aesthetic; it produces a psychological scale that destabilises the viewer’s position, shifting attention from observation to immersion.
Bolawa demonstrates notable sensitivity in his treatment of Blouberg Beach, where Table Mountain emerges as a distant stabilising form. Rather than functioning as a postcard landmark, the mountain becomes a quiet witness, a presence that anchors the fluid choreography of water and wind without overpowering it. This interplay between monumentality and fragility reflects the exhibition’s broader inquiry into memory and environmental endurance.
The photographs of Dolphin Beach carry a distinct kinetic energy. Yet Bolawa avoids dramatization. The movement of kite surfers, waves, and horizon lines accumulates gradually, producing a visual rhythm that feels durational rather than event-driven. In this respect, the work aligns more closely with meditative landscape practices than documentary photography. The coastline is not depicted as a destination but as an evolving condition.
Equally compelling is Bolawa’s engagement with Big Bay’s tidal pools. Here, the atmosphere shifts from expansiveness to introspection. The tidal pools suggest containment and reflection, offering a counterpoint to the open sky’s restless mobility. This oscillation between enclosure and openness generates emotional depth, allowing the coastline to function as both external geography and internal psychological terrain.
Bolawa’s technical restraint is central to the work’s effectiveness. Colour is handled with notable subtlety; the blues of sky and water do not compete but instead create a layered tonal continuity that reinforces the exhibition’s contemplative pace. The artist’s use of negative space is particularly sophisticated, encouraging viewers to linger within the photograph rather than search for narrative resolution.
If the exhibition reveals a tension, it lies in the delicate balance between repetition and progression. The recurrence of suspended figures and expansive horizons risks visual familiarity, yet Bolawa mitigates this through nuanced shifts in atmosphere, distance, and spatial hierarchy. These variations accumulate into a visual language that feels coherent rather than repetitive.
What ultimately distinguishes The Restless Coast is its attentiveness to quiet transformation. Bolawa positions the coastline as a living archive shaped by movement, memory, and environmental change. The photographs neither romanticise nor critique overtly; instead, they create a space where viewers can confront the subtle emotional weight carried by landscape.
In this exhibition, Bolawa demonstrates a developing visual authorship grounded in patience and observation. The work suggests an artist less concerned with capturing decisive moments than with constructing conditions for reflection. The coastline becomes both collaborator and subject, restless yet serene, monumental yet intimate.
The Restless Coast affirms Bolawa as an emerging photographic voice whose engagement with landscape extends beyond representation toward poetic and conceptual inquiry.
