THK Gallery and Trevor Stuurman present Your Beauty Is Our Concern, an exhibition concerned with the act of making oneself beautiful – a state of being sometimes required for one to claim their place in society. Beauty and glamour — often two sides of the same coin — have long been seen as tools to overcome the body’s natural limitations as well as social and political constraints. Beauty can be inherent, and can be measured using natural qualities or qualities acquired through stylisation.
Glamour, on the other hand, almost always requires effort and labour to craft. Together, these ideas shape both how we perceive ourselves and how we are seen by others. Beauty, as elusive and uncontainable as it is, is often denied to others through oppression and exclusion. And yet the very practices involved in striving for it also contain immense potential for joy, courage, strength and community.
In his first solo exhibition at THK Gallery, Trevor Stuurman examines beauty—its potential and limitations—through a series of photographs that reflect his multidisciplinary practice in visual art, commercial photography and creative direction. The work celebrates beauty through hair-making rituals such as braiding, styling and intricate haircuts – drawing on long-standing traditions of beautification across continents and cultures. Brilliant in structure and deeply affecting in sensibility, the presentation portrays beauty not just as a process or practice but as a way of life. Beauty as ritual, as birthright and as strategy for survival.
Beauty is often denied to marginalised groups through systems of exclusion and oppression, yet the very practices of beautifying oneself offer transformative potential. The labor of crafting glamour is an act of reclamation, an assertion of presence in spaces that would otherwise seek to silence or erase. It is this very process of beautification that Stuurman captures, illustrating how these rituals go beyond the surface to become strategies for survival.
Trevor Stuurman’s exhibition at THK Gallery invites us to reconsider beauty—not as a fleeting pursuit but as a powerful, collective ritual that unites, empowers and survives across time and space. It is a celebration of resilience and a reminder of the strength we can find within ourselves and each other. Your Beauty Is Our Concern opened on the 24th of April and will run until the 30th of May 2025 at THK Gallery, Cape Town.
