Untitled ,2015
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Note : Untitled (2015) emanates from Imithungo Yezivubeko, the body of work presented for Simphiwe Ndzube’s graduate exhibition at Michaelis School of Fine Art UCT in 2015 and which won him the much coveted Michaelis Art Prize. The translation of this title from its Xhosa idiomatic origin alludes to stretchmarks, stitches of hardship and the troubles in life leaving their mark on the spirit and the body.In the catalogue that accompanied the show, Ndzube offers up the works as entry point into his personal, interior world. This can be read in part as a meditation on how he has come to cope with the condition of being the kind of person he is, the violences’ that belie aspects of his personal history placed in relation to and within the meta narratives of economically and politically determined black suffering: ‘The death of my mother in 2008 from internal bleeding after attempting to stop a fight. The death of my uncle, stabbed and burnt in the Eastern Cape.This practise of salvaging and stitching is a re-organising of a near impossible life and up-bringing. It is a reconfiguration of historical blackness placed in a trajectory, through his essay, that leads from the death of his mother to political assassinations of black political figures in the first decade of the independence movement on the continent.In Untitled (2015), we encounter Ndzube’s sombre contemplation of the motifs and material objects encompassing his practise. The elements of stitching, the zips, the sjamboks, the folds, the sense of foreboding, the broody violence are moods that dominate even his more exuberant later works. The storm blanket, formed around a square frame, hovers like a fluffy cloud, droopy with impending violence. From their mount the cloud of sjamboks are inanimate objects awaiting their sadistic wielder. On the bottom right hand corner of the work a blot of multi-coloured, but predominantly red fabric, appears like a wound on the storm blanket, sutured into place.
Nkule Mabaso
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