RODNEY GEE

Bio

Following a five-year hiatus from painting, Pringle Bay–based artist Rodney Gee returned to his practice in 2025. Since his return, he has participated in two group exhibitions and presented a solo exhibition in Cape T own’s CBD.

Gee’s latest body of work, signed under the pseudonym “Ghee,” marks a distinct step into contemporary storytelling. Engaging with one of the defining conversations of our time—the rise of artificial intelligence—the series explores the increasingly blurred boundary between human experience and artificial existence.

Through scenes of robots performing familiar human rituals—playing music, embracing animals, meditating, waiting for transport or attempting to rest—Gee transforms ordinary moments into reflections on technology, emotion and identity. At once humorous, tender and quietly unsettling, the works ask what remains uniquely human in an age when machines are becoming increasingly capable of imitating our behaviour.

Rather than presenting artificial intelligence as a distant or threatening force, Gee places the robot within the intimacy of everyday life. The machine becomes a mirror through which viewers are invited to reconsider their own habits, vulnerabilities and need for connection. Completely self-taught, Gee works fluidly across oil, acrylic and watercolour. His paintings combine technical confidence with imaginative storytelling, balancing tradition and innovation, beauty and questioning, and the familiar world of the present with the uncertain possibilities of the future.