Colin Kahanovitz

Colin Kahanovitz SC is an advocate at the Cape Bar and specialises in a variety of employment law matters. Kahanovitz is similarly committed to his passion for art

Kahanovitz's artistic career started in the 1970s while he was a student at Hugo Naudé Art Centre, Worcester, Western Cape. Throughout his scholastic years, he found comfort and creativity in art. However, for the next thirty years, he created little art. A number of his drawings were selected to enter the Constitutional Court Art Collection (CCAC) in 2009. The artworks selected for the CCAC speak of the "Upington 14" who were given the death penalty for a homicide that none of them could all have possibly committed. During the trial, Kahanovitz was a member of their legal team and drew the portraits during the trial to be used for activist campaigns for their release. He did so as he recognised that the apartheid legal system was biased against his clients. This art series, and Kahanovitz’ approach, shows how art can complement the law in the pursuit of justice.