At Investec, my first up close view of an Esther Mahlangu artwork was a fiberglass pot painted in her studio, albeit signed by her.

Used to the wonderful hand-built heavy clay pots of Gwayi and the finer earth- fired pots of talented hlengwe/xangana ladies in our south East lowveld of Zimbabwe, I was prepared to find that the ‘commercialism’ of these fiberglass pots disturbed me ….

But there certainly was a resonance to them which intrigued me and made me want to dig deeper…

Karabo Morule, entrepreneur/business leader, also obviously felt this same pull, stopping during her guided walkabout at the Investec Art fair to note these creations .. more about that walkabout in the next blog …

After viewing the offerings at Investec art Fair, I delved into Esther’s exhibition at Iziko Museums of South Africa “Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting”: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective.

Curated by Nontobeko Ntombela, the exhibition highlights Dr Esther Mahlangu’s over 50-year long career and her meteoric rise as a contemporary artist, earning her global acclaim.

I realised immediately there here was a truly committed art journey by one woman…

“Painting has always been a part of me. I cannot separate it from myself, and neither would I want to.
I look forward to sharing my practice and long and colourful story with you ….” Says Dr Esther Mahlangu.

Recounting how her artistic journey began, Esther Mahlangu often tells the story of being trained by her grandmother and mother in the early 1940s, saying: “I would continue to paint on the house when they left for a break. When they came back, they would say: ‘What have you done, child? Never do that again!’ After that, I started drawing on the back of the house, and slowly my drawings got better and better until they finally asked me to come back to the front of the house. Then I knew I was good at painting.”

The retrospective exhibition draws its inspiration from Esther Mahlangu’s remarkable story of how she discovered her extraordinary artistic talent as a young girl of just 10 years old.

From her beginnings of hand dug earth pigments painted and smeared as paste onto hut walls,

Through the language of colour and form,

the exhibition charts octogenarian Mahlangu’s contribution to contemporary art close to seven decades.

The earth pigments of her older works draw me strongly – collecting as I am the wonderful earth pigments of my own rural area in Zimbabwe….

Elemental, simple powerful… these colours and forms are resonant of man’s relationship with Mother Earth, with nature linked to the human spirit –

More than 100 artworks have been loaned from international collections, carefully curated alongside historic photographs and a short film.

And although her early works are what truly entrance me, I realised the genuiness, the reality of her move to bright pigments, acrylics, so that she could share and move with her craft….

From the likes of this characterful earth fired clay pot,

….To the likes of this, for me less satisfying, studio painted fibreglass pot …

Mahlangu’s BMW 525i Art Car makes its historic return to South Africa, created in 1991.

This diverse collection in “Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective”, offers a comprehensive asks engaging insight into a monumental art career

Esther Mahlangu art tributes to Mandela

History in the making..

I strongly identify with the fact that she is never shy to step out of her comfort zone and paint on anything, (having painted on all sorts of things myself, from canvas and paper to walls, human bodies and even a full flying aeroplane…)

Anything at all is paintable … Ndebele beadwork included..

Beadwork….

“Mahlangu’s journey is a testament to passion, innovation, and resilience,” Curator Nontobeko Ntombela remarks. “The retrospective pays homage to Esther Mahlangu’s unique approach to art, which intersects African cultures with modernity and the contemporary. The exhibition celebrates Mahlangu’s voice, agency, and pioneering spirit, symbolizing her self-enunciation, selfdetermination and creativity.,”.

Of the exhibition, Dr Bongani Ndhlovu, Acting CEO, Iziko Museums of South Africa, says: “Iziko Museums is honored to celebrate the living legend, Dr Esther Mahlangu, and to host this colossal showcase where creativity, culture, and aesthetics are fused.”

He continues, “Dr. Mahlangu is a living symbol of triumph against adversity. Her approach to art has inspired generations and is a reaffirmation of calls for Africa-centred innovations.”

Truly, after viewing this retrospective exhibition, I have respect and admiration for Dr Esther Mahlangu’s adventurous spirit and her remarkable contribution to the world of art.

Our Director of Zimbabwe National Art Gallery, Raphael Chikukwa, meets Esther Mahlangu…

Transcending the boundaries of canvas and mural, Mahlangu’s work displays an inimitable fluency across diverse mediums, from small, treasured keepsakes to vast public installations and murals. With its main point of departure in traditional Ndebele practices of wall paintings and beadwork, her artistry finds expression in the most unlikely places, extending to novel surfaces such as sculptures and ceramics. Mahlangu’s participation in the exhibition Magiciens de la Terre (1989) in Paris, shot her to fame, marking the launch of her transition from a communal practice into her own agency as a contemporary artist. Shortly thereafter, in 1991, she became the first woman artist and African to paint a BMW Art Car. Mahlangu has exhibited in over 20 countries, sometimes with multiple solo shows in at least seventeen different cities. She has painted murals across eight different countries and participated in residency programs with institutions like Project Row Houses (2005), L’Associazione Culturale Colonos (2009) & Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (2014). Some of her more significant engagements include Documenta IX (1992), the 5th Biennale of Contemporary Art (2000), the 1st Malindi Biennale (2006), the 3rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2009) and Art Basel (2023) through her collaborations with BMW Group on the 1991 BMW 525i Art Car and the Electric AI canvas respectively. Esther Mahlangu has also worked on projects with fashion brands like Comme des Garçons (1991), shoe companies Melissa (2009) and EYTYS (2015). In 2016, she created the Belvedere (RED) bottle design, which helped fund a campaign against HIV/AIDS. Mahlangu’s works are represented in over 27 public institutions’ collections, and she has been collected by private individuals worldwide. She continues her artistic career to this day. Esther Mahlangu is the recipient of numerous honorary doctorates for her contribution to art.

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Then I knew I was good at painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective at Iziko Museums of South Africa in Cape Town.