The young child, the painter,
the foreigner are ‘not from here’,
they are often not part of the ruling
discourse, the preconceptions that
are common or fashionable at a
certain stage.
I am NOT a New Yorker
I am NOT Dutch
I am NO longer living in South Africa.
I am always ‘not from here’,
even though I try to know
or understand ‘what’s going on’ and
what the rules are and how they
keep on changing and what that means.
When looking at images I’m not lost,
but I’m uneasy.
Not from Here (I). First published in Marlene Dumas, Sweet Nothings. Notes and Texts, first edition Galerie Paul Andriesse and De Balie Publishers Amsterdam, 1998; and second edition (revised and expanded) Koenig Books London, 2014 [written for the show Not from Here in Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, 1994].