
South African artist Mawande Ka Zenzile had an exhibition showing at Stevenson Johannesburg that closed on the 24th of June. The article will examine how the borders between art work and the title have dissolved. That this is a result of the artist realising a relationship between what is symbolic and literal is determined by the oscillation between intellectual inundation and what is cathartic about artistic expression. Ka Zenzile work explores a relationship between what is intangible and its palpable disintegration about what is symbolic and literal. The artist has developed a sensibility related to expressing what is frail as palpable and what is concrete as disintegrating. It will be demonstrated that in Ka Zenzile work what is fleeting is symbolic and what is literal is diffused by a conscious expression of what is cathartic about creative expression.
This is articulated in this show by the piece titled “Isango elimxinwa”, this not only marks a representational evolution in the work through the arch doorway in the middle of the piece but also how the image is subsumed by the canvas. His characteristic strategy is to create a measure of immediate depth between the background and foreground of the piece. A pattern characterizes the top left hand curve of the arch. The piece is finished with the same deep and tangible colours that suggest movement and sometimes formlessness.
The same progressive strategy of representation can also be discerned in “Iziduli zethafa” a piece in which what is literal is both symbolised by what is diffused -landscape- and figurative -the horizontal line. In order for the function of the horizontal line in the collection of his work to be demonstrated has an operation related to depth on the canvas. It also symbolizes how limits in relation to what is diffused function with the ambiguity of the mark and continuity. This is emphasized by the three small humps that are the images in the piece, they mark depth and foreground rather than expressing representational images as a manifestation of intellectual inundation. They also operate to demonstrate what is symbolic about fleeting disintegration. His world is not just his canvas rather he has a relationship with the landscape that is as expandsive as it is intuitive. He creates a space where he is conscious he is the medium through which this relationship is concretized.
The piece “Ukuhamba kukubona” articulates the deliberate nature of a being who is conscious of a diffused energy and establishing a relationship with it. Vertical multi coloured lines characterise the piece in the palpable cow dung. The piece expresses a searching energy unlike the sense of discovery that the horizontal line can represent. It suggests movement that is linear, but also an energy that is bound or controlled. The piece is a culmination of diffused energy having found direction in careful but various intellectual energies.
The work “Kiss my ass” is a play on the cultural space that iconography occupies in the western cannon. Soldiers dressed in medieval regalia characterise this dark piece. A sense of the dark characterise this price with white figures contrasting the dark gesso finished piece, that unifies them with the figures in black like static. What is literal assumes transformative connotations in the sense that what is historic has already imbued a mark of stasis and the measure of personal impact in relation to what is historic. In this piece it is symbolically unified with the past and what is indistinct about the contemporary.
Instillation plays a strong role in Ka Zenzile work. In this exhibition one of the pieces titled “The Golden Goose(An Autobiography of an Artist)” is a piece characterized by a coffin with a goose on top of it. A small tree is planted next to the coffin. Ka Zenzile is conscious of a measure of creative and personal development, in that the coffin represents a form of catharsis and culmination. The tree in the context provides a symbolic function in terms of representing spiritual and intellectual growth. This piece articulates an arch of evolved creative expression and spiritual growth. What is significant is the symbolic function of time, it is incorporated in the work as an arch of internal and external accretion, expressing how time and growth operate in tandem in the intellectual space. The coffin is symbolic of disintegration while the tree depicts the ambiguity of stasis and development.
Ka Zenzile creativity is evolving and speaks to a measure of becoming. This might not be only about creativity, it could be about a holistic approach in different facets of his intellectial life. The show discourses an artist who is conscious of his creative development but also his relationship with history, contemporary and past. It is becmong clear through instillation where historic influences are relinquished. Through painting we can discerned where influences have fused and assumed measures of becoming.