“I come from a place that is shrouded by powerful cultural norms and customs. At the age of 10 I had to undergo initiation rituals with my peers of the same age… My immediate response to the horror and trauma of the event was suppressed until a later stage when I realized that I had difficulty in looking at gaping wounds of injured people, especially the wounds that were inflicted for ceremonial purposes. I then realized how traumatized I was. I decided to heal myself by dealing with these experiences in my artworks whereby I try to use psychological images which I feel comfortable with in an attempt to replace horrific scenes, sights and sounds of the initiation ritual….The work depicts shadowy images deriving from the emotional experiences of initiation… I try to be as truthful as possible such as in the use of earthy colors and jagged edges… The work is attempting to understand a lingering perception widely acknowledged in my culture about the secretive ritual of initiation. I try to question, and at times justify the ritual’s attempt to continuously reposition the shifting male ego in our modern society.” Colbert Mashile