The Palimpsest of Memory: The Life and Art of William Kentridge To encounter the work of William Kentridge is to enter a world where time is not linear, but layered, much like the very surfaces upon which he works. Born in Johannesburg on April 28, 1955, Kentridge’s creative consciousness was forged in the crucible of apartheid-era South Africa. Growing up in a household defined by legal resistance—his parents, Sydney Kentridge and Felicia Geffen, were attorneys who defended those marginalized by discriminatory laws—he developed an early, profound sensitivity to the mechanics of power and th…