Artists From South Africa

"“I love to paint and have been doing it my whole life. I will paint anything, as long as there’s a benefit where my culture can be preserved, where somebody growing up can value and never forget their Ndebele roots.”"

"“As children grow up today, they’re losing their culture. I don’t want my culture to die. That’s why I teach children Ndebele art. They must know their culture and where they come from.”"

"“Being recognized at home is such a blessing. It shows that my people still see the great work that I do,”"

""As an artist, her ...composition is more compact, more engaging and complex than that of her contemporaries, the borders more complicated. She has a tendency to frame her pattern motifs.”"

"Her works are in major private collections including that of The Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC) of Jean Pigozzi and in many Western museums. Despite being an internationally recognized artist, Esther Mahlangu still presently lives in her village in close and constant contact with her culture."

"Mahlangu follows a local tradition through which this particular type of painting technique is handed down in the family, communicated, learned and transmitted only by women (in the past)"

"Esther Mahlangu has worked tirelessly exposing and developing her talent travelling around the world, and she is very passionate about sharing her knowledge with the younger generation so that she leaves a legacy that lives on for generations to come."

"“Since being a young child, Esther had a will to paint,”"

""The art is practiced almost entirely by women, likely passed down when girls became adolescents. Esther couldn’t wait. (She was born an artist),”"

"Real life requires one to perform many adjectives (for example being woman/happy/doctor/young/in love/friend/older sister....there are varying conventions that dictate how certain adjectives are activated), and for people or objects to participate in the world, i guess they have to perform--well, i guess we make objects perform--through their use, their place in language. i am interested in objects performing passively...alluding in a very scattered way to disparate things, somehow dancing their colours, textures, thingness with other things...and their thingnesses too."

"Populism and opportunism are the order of the day and all manner of insincerities abound – none of which bring us any closer to finding ways to solve the real problems of the day – poverty, hunger, unemployment, our lack of solidarity, community and ethics, the need for better systems of accountability and governance."

"It seems to me however that its greatest contribution is in giving us art as another language to understand and express ourselves, especially during this time when the conventional political discourse is severely limited. And it’s not all serious, thank goodness. Humour, irony and sly jokes abound in many of the works that cast a jaundiced eye on our contemporary leaders and problems."

"“An investigation of light and shadow, of nature, our behaviors, the conscious and the subconscious, connection and dissonance, the outside world and the inside world, the phases of the moon from fullness to absence, creativity and receptivity, sound and silence. An interdependence of the two.”"

"I am not religious but I pray through my work to unknown devils and gods. I look for my soul in colors and empty my being through parables of rusted, lost metal doors."

"In empty buildings that felt like spiritual experiences, exploring holy chambers of neglected architecture... finding something so beautiful in what society disregards, and bringing to life that which usually people throw away or ignore."

"Miners are waiting for justice. Workers are waiting for a living wage. People are waiting for service delivery. Refugees are waiting for assistance. Men are waiting for jobs. We are all waiting for an honest politician. So many people are waiting for others to do things first. To take the blame. To do things for them. To take the fall. To build the country. To admit defeat. There has been so much waiting in this country that much time has been lost."

"We have become so distanced from nature, so these murals are an attempt to reconnect us with the natural world."

"There's an inherent irony in recreating nature on cement, so the series is a nostalgic reminder of what we've lost but also an attempt to reintegrate that into the present,"

"“We forget that the dividing lines specifying countries were merely drawn by politically hungry men. In reality, the earth is open. There are no countries, no borders, it belongs to no one. We are transient visitors and should travel as we please,""

"“Through her works, FAITH XLVII leads a spiritual search and offers the visitors to follow her on the winding path to serenity. Light and shadow are intertwined in her art and the chiaroscuro explored by the artist is ambivalent. Deeply meditative, it invites us to pause.”"

"“FAITH XLVII’s work questions inner duality and the ambivalence of the world. Shadows intertwined with light, her work is highly inspired by Buddhism, connected to nature, but also haunted by the ghost of post-traumatic stress due to her South African origins. Through her creations, the exploration of the notion of consciousness makes us go through the worst as well as the best of the human experience.”"

"Mirroring our contradictions, her installations encourage us to turn our inner gaze towards the animality within us. It is only by listening to the non-human in us, by letting nature express itself in culture, that we can reinvent the world, the artist suggests."

"A South African artist whose textured imagery brings spirituality and nature to the foreground of urban environments."

"A rare incantation of both the earthly and the transcendent."

"Deeply profound visions existing as physical aesthetic gifts for other viewers."

"Equally at home in grimy alleys as she is in a studio, she creates murals that are both breathtaking and poignant. I challenge anyone to look at her work and not feel a little overawed by her talent."

"“Diamonds are so polished and precious and usually associated with jewellery. When they are set against the unevenness of the bone, it’s quite interesting,”"

"“I’m challenging the conventional thought of an African curio,”"

"Her works are designed for the high end luxury market, but also have a playful and girly charm."

"Her 2013 collection "Diamond Dreaming" included bracelets, necklaces and pendants inspired by the Islamic Hamsa motif as well as keys, crowns and peace signs in 9ct and 18ct white, yellow and rose gold."

"Her range of Skullchmey exotic animal skulls of crocodile, baboon, caracul are dipped in liquid precious metals in a technique she has developed herself. Her metal embalming process leaves the exotic animal skulls in an antiqued patina finish that is already being copied by others."

"'Waste at Work combines social awareness, environmental concerns, cultural diversity and visual art in a single project that reflects the heterogeneous population of South Africa.""

""Jeanne Hoffman and Liza Grobler have collaborated on a number of projects over the past five years – all of these have been visual reactions to so-called “development” and “progress”."

"Her work resides in many notable collections including the Jeanetta Blignaut Art Consultancy Collection."

"She has participated in close to a hundred group shows both in South Africa and abroad - in Italy, Brazil, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Spain, the United States and Finland. She attended residencies and workshops in the US, Norway, Finland and Switzerland."

"Grobler' work often incorporates traditional craft techniques such as beadwork and she has collaborated with The Quebeka Bead Studio to produce beaded works."

"Life itself is quite ‘kaleidoscopic’ and surreal. Perhaps as an artist or a ‘self,’ it is an assemblage of possibilities, probabilities and the real as more strange than the fiction. The fictions also are too heavy."

"“My focus is to separate what has created the self [and] what is the representation of personality and group identity.”"

"“I think everybody is a post-colonial artist; we’re all living in post-colonial societies.”"

"“ ...her extraordinary versatility in whatever medium she chooses, be it paint, clay, wood or glass projects her ability yo meld the cerebral with the emotional and the visual .....”"

""Bekker’s diverse artworks capture metaphorically her passion for transcending boundaries and revealing both the strength and fragility of the human condition.”"

"“Myfanwy Bekker, the artist, the woman, is a source of light. She uses pencil and paintbrush with more immediacy and ease than most use words to tell the story of their lives. Her art is lyrical and soulful. There is beauty and delight, while also commenting on the severity of our human condition. Myfanwy’s experiences of South Africa, Texas, New Mexico and California, the landscape of the earth and the hearts and minds of each place’s inhabitants are all blended in her paintings...”"

"“Myfanwy Bekker’s work has been as consistent and heart-felt as any artist I have ever known. In the twenty four years I have known her, she has continually included observations on her surroundings, her South African heritage and her love of nature in every artistic endeavour. She is spontaneous in her application of paint, giving her images a soul - filled with emotion. Her understanding of materials makes it easy for her to translate ideas into paintings or sculptural work that capture the sentiment she wants to convey. She often includes neon in organic configurations that intertwine with clay, twigs, actual canvas or other structural elements that she has painted. Myfanwy’s South African background is ever-present in her work. Her love of the country and her upbringing are inescapable trademarks of this wonderful artist!”"

""We, as artists, go along, searching for our own truth and so our collective creativity becomes our personal and cultural history. We are simply visual communicators.”"

"Just as there are many ideas and concepts one has to share, so there are many media and forms to choose as vehicles. It’s sort of like a visual conversation, different audiences, different languages, different places. One decides upon the most efficient and pleasing ‘fit’."

"I am naturally drawn to light - like a plant I will inadvertently find myself turned towards the light. I have always done this, even as a child. Hopefully I will continue to do this and perhaps one day simply disappear in a flash of light.”"

"With the use of the organic juxtaposed with the hard edge, I want the pieces to balance and create their own zing .... and comfort me."

"It has always been the same refrain, really, the struggle to meld two selves, two deep senses of awareness, to make an acceptably sane harmony of the two (or three or four ...)"

"I chose to force myself to look here at what it means to be a white South African woman artist in America and such far flung places for thirty odd years."

"“In this show I want to talk about light and a type of fine tensile strength, perhaps a feminine strength, seductive but tough.""