A lioness towers over a seemingly dead hunter, her paws pinning his body to the ground. A woman dressed in black, her face replaced by a leopard’s head, sits flanked by three prowling wild cats. The two installations are part of the latest exhibition by 72-year-old American photographic artist Roger Ballen, which opens in Johannesburg, South Africa, next Tuesday. Renowned for his thought-provoking work into the human psyche, Ballen said the display aims to explore the “antagonistic” relationship between Man and Nature, especially the decimation of African wildlife. Roger Ballen poses for a portrait at the Inside Out Centre for the Arts. “If you look at the history of humanity, it’s just been a destruction of nature, the destruction of wildlife,” said Ballen, a New York native, who has lived and worked in South Africa for almost 40 years. Wildlife numbers across the continent have dropped 66 per cent since 1970, according to the World Wildlife Fund. From black rhinos to pangolins, numerous species are now critically endangered. The display zooms in on the “Golden Age” of African hunting around the end of the 19th century, when Ballen said “the problem started”. It looks at...
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