After receiving an art teacher's diploma from Hewat College in Cape Town, Garth Erasmus entered a diploma art program at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. In 1988 his work reached the South African mainstream in the exhibition Neglected Tradition: Towards a New History of South African Art (1930-1988)at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Erasmus teaches art in Cape Town.

The Muse 3
1995
Acrylic on paper
78.6 x 51.3 cm (30 15/16 x 20 3/16 in.)
97-15-2, museum purchase
(on view May-August 2001)

This work belongs to a collage series made from posters collected by the artist. The "muse" refers to the process of pondering rather than artistic inspiration. Created just after the 1994 elections, the collages address the long history of division between South Africa's black, white and "colored" (mixed race, south Asian and Arab) peoples and call for a peaceful reassembling of the country's disparate parts. By recycling posters and employing the collage technique, Erasmus reformulates and reinvigorates the old. His process serves as a metaphor for making a better South Africa.