Visual artist and musician, Xander Ferreira, also known as Gazelle, has been back from New York since 2020 travelling through South Africa. Always known as the coolest kid in music, and art in all its forms, he is back with an art collaboration and new music.

“Xander Ferreira may be an artist by profession but he’ll also answer to philosopher, magician, seer, and above all – explorer. His mind is a playing field where ideas run rife and his environment is a sounding board for his analysis of human existence. In short this man is deep. A South African native, he first rose to infamy for his Gazelle project, which started off as a study of the socio-political behaviour of African dictators and turned into a book, musical genre, album and double act with DJ InviZAble”, writes nataal.com

On his annual road trip through the tapestry that is South Africa where on the last day he stood in front of the Pierneef ‘Station Panels’ at the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch in awe. These masterpieces inspired him to take on the task of creating a newfangled visual representation of each province. He commenced by writing a depiction of each territory into a manufactured scenography that drew from the countries rich diversity and complexed past. In an alternative take on magic realism, he researched mythological and historical references, weaved into a fantastical balance of symbolic colloquial natural elements of landscape, fauna, and flora. An exercise to deconstruct history and reassemble it into inspiring objects of beauty whilst exploring his constant study of iconography and the power of symbolism.

During this period he connected visual artist Llewellyn van Eeden and approached him with the idea of partnering up to bring the visual elements to life through his craft of illustration. During the past year and a half, the two set off on the path to combine comic-style elements from the likes of Hergé’s Tin-Tin with the stylistic approach of Pierneef, to create a marriage of characters and landscapes in a uniquely South African experience titled ‘Postcards from Paradise’.

This journey inspired Gazelle to write and produce a song by the same title which is a traveling troubadours journey of walking through South Africa and sipping the sweet juice of life’s experiences and adventure through each territory in an ode to the beauty of the country’s rich treasure trove of people and places.

Llewellyn, hailing from Mtubatuba, in rural Zululand, is a multi-disciplinary designer based in London, UK. Although he has moved through different industries, including fashion, advertising, and tech, his first love has always been illustration.