A Holocaust Art Exhibition by Mike Fisher
Beneath the Skin is a major Holocaust focused art exhibition opening at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre in January 2026. Presented at a time when antisemitism is again rising globally, the exhibition confronts memory, erasure and moral responsibility – reminding us why the imperative to remember has never been more urgent.
Grounded in the principle of Never Forget, Beneath the Skin explores what remains when dignity, ritual and humanity are stripped away. It asks what survives beneath ideology, beneath violence and beneath silence – and challenges viewers to confront the enduring consequences of forgetting.
Rather than illustrating history, the exhibition creates an experiential encounter with absence, loss and fractured identity. Each work functions as both witness and question, asking viewers not simply to look, but to stand, to feel and to remember.
“This work is not about representing the Holocaust, it is about standing in its shadow,” says Mike Fisher. “I want viewers to feel the weight of what was taken, what was erased and what still demands responsibility from us today. Art, for me, is a form of moral witnessing.”
The exhibition unfolds through a series of deeply symbolic and confronting themes:
Death Marches (Auschwitz)
Forced movement toward extinction — bodies driven beyond endurance, deaths without witnesses.
Death Without Honour
The removal of burial, ritual, and farewell — death denied dignity itself.
Fragmentation & Mass Graves
Identity dissolved, bodies reduced to matter — the violence of anonymity.
Butterflies — The Children
Butterflies symbolise the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust. Many children drew butterflies in ghettos and camps — fragile expressions of life amid annihilation.
Trees: The Tree of Life and the Tree of Lies
Drawing on Kabbalistic symbolism, trees represent hope, enlightenment, and betrayal. The theme is inspired by a quote found in Auschwitz:
“There is only one person answerable for the Holocaust – God himself – for not protecting the Chosen.”
Artist & Curator
Mike Fisher is a multidisciplinary artist, anger-management specialist, and founder of the British Association of Anger Management. His work bridges psychotherapy, ethics, trauma studies, and visual art. For more than four years, he has been deeply engaged in developing this sustained body of Holocaust work, rooted in memory, testimony, and material witness.
“I believe art must carry memory when language fails,” Fisher says. “My work is about asking people not to look away – because forgetting is the most dangerous act of all.”
Based between Cape Town, Santander (Spain) and the United Kingdom, Fisher’s practice is driven by extensive research, creative exploration and profound personal commitment – marked, as he describes, by blood, sweat and tears.
The exhibition runs until the 25th of March – a guided walkabout, offering visitors direct insight into the themes, symbolism and emotional architecture of the works can be arranged.
Venue: Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, Forest Town
Dates: 18 January – 25 March 2026
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