The vanGogh of South Africa: Phillemon Hlungwani

Phillemon Hlungwani was born in 1975, in Giyani, Thomo Village, in Limpopo and now lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He comes from a family of artists, and says that ‘art chose him’. He works in a variety of printmaking mediums, and also draws with charcoal. He attributes his mother as the impetus for his career, because she gave him charcoal from the hearth in their home. He says of his female subjects: ‘In my art I used to depict women that symbolized my mother. She is the one who encouraged me to make art. The women in my art are shown working because they are equal’.

Hlungwani work expresses his Christian and cultural beliefs. He feels a strong spiritual connection towards trees as a place for prayer and worshipping them, so trees are often represented in his work. His work often depicts the Tsengelendotwe tree found in his environment. It bears a fruit which they would mix with the fresh milk from the herd and drink as a milkshake. His landscape images refer to self, family and his cultural history.

Utilizing his upbringing to inform his work via traditional customs and cultural practices of his community, Hlungwani draws images of himself as a young herdboy tending the family goats. He understands the bushveld landscape intimately from his early years and he depicts scenes of small town life and a hard work ethic as few artists can or want to experience it for themselves. 

As a point of comparison, the ‘plein aire’ painters of the Barbizon School, and the French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists understood suffering and toiling under the sun to paint their pictures. Yet, theirs was a point of observation –something not a part of their own experience. Hlungwani, very much in the same vein as Vincent vanGogh did with his drawings of the miners and potato farmers, shows us a way of life for the people from his village. He shows us the quiet moments crossing town with one’s good for the market, or a child following its mother to and from town. He shows us the family working together , tilling their fields and trying to raise a decent crop to feed the clan. 

Hlungwani’s depictions of the living conditions of his people - ramshackled clapboard homes in a hot, dry country, sting with a sense of poverty, and cultural awareness, for we understand that the artist describes a current situation in South Africa, not some quaint historical telling of a time long past. These renditions of South African life are are minder that the world hasn’t entirely caught up to a 21^st century standard of high-tech living. The town may be poor, but they are unified in their existence and look to be at peace and accept their existence as being what God intended for them. There is a quiet working of the land and one feels as if we were looking at one of Paul Gauguin’s rural Normandy-inspired pictures.

Still the curious thing in Hlungwani’s work isn’t the subject as much as what’s going on around the subject. He fills his skies and compositions with swirling dotted lines and circular arcs that surround the people walking to work; creating a dance of lines that equally encircle a tree in a field and a woman carrying a basket on her head. The abstractions of these lines activate his compositions in a way we are not used to seeing. It’s as though the marks could be a preliminary method the artist uses to begin drawing his subjects, but they are left in the picture, not erased or cut out of it, so they must have more significance than originally thought.

They could be trails of flies or bugs surrounding the subjects or maybe they have something to do with the state of chaos that surrounds us all. They could be that and more, but they would appear to be something ‘other’ than what one sees in this earthly realm. They would appear to be  traceries of some human presence or spirit, some soul that surrounds the subject – letting us know , as we see in Tintoretto’s ‘Last Supper’, that there is more in our daily realm if we but look for it.

His work effortlessly segues between media showing a mature vision. His work is deceptively simple and drawn with tenderness, still there is a sinewy strength to his line which so perfectly suits his subject and the results are astoundingly direct and sensitive.

Hlungwani is a young artist well on his way to becoming a promising star  as he gains critical attention. South Africa has a notable printmaking tradition, and has produced many fine artists that mainly show within the country, but Hlungwani’s work speaks about his roots and beyond his cultural borders with his life-sized prints. They are accomplished,  impressive and ambitious. Hlungwani has started to exhibit his work outside of South Africa and one senses that this artist will make as fine a mark as vanGogh did with his drawing s and the spiritual component present in his Starry Night. Hlungwani is generous with his time and teaches and encourages younger artists to pursue their dreams. He is a printmaking gem that will grow more brilliant with time and prestige.

Education:  

            Johannesburg Art Foundation, 2000

            Artist Proof Studio printmaking certificate, 2000.

            WITS School of Art, 2004

Commissions:

            Murals for the Johannesburg Development Agency,  South African Governmental            

            offices, MTN,The Standard Bank Art Gallery, Bell Dewar and Hall.

Awards:       

            King Korn competition winner, 2000-2001

            Finalist for the Absa Gallery competition

            Ampersand Fellowship, 2009

Professional Experience: 

            Coordinator and facilitator of APS professional artists program

            Teacher of papermaking

            Facilitator of Paper Prayers workshops

            Coordinator of NOAH’s arks art teaching project

Namibia's Esteemed Printmaker, John Ndevasia Muafangejo

John Ndevasia Muafangejo's international reputation as Namibia's most famous printmaker began  in spite of a repressive apartheid situation in his native country, (known then as Rhodesia). Born in Angola in 1943, Muafangejo grew up in a traditional home, herding cattle by day,  and playing communal and literary games with the village elders at night. These games had a strong moral and philosophical overtone, which influenced his early childhood and his artistic development, but it also had a strong influence on  the content of his work which was largely autobiographical. 

Muafangejo was only twelve years old when his father died. His mother was left with nothing and she moved to a mission, bringing her son with her. It was here that Muafangejo converted to Christianity and in 1964 he attended St Mary's Anglican mission school at Odibo (in Namibia). There his artistic skills were recognized and he eventually went to study art at Rorke's Drift from (1968 -1969) before returning to teach and establish an art school at St Mary's. 

At the age of 25 his works were included in exhibitions in London, the 1972 São Paulo Biennial and  the National Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden.  His works then found their way into museums and galleries in Munich &  Berlin, Germany, Alvar Aalto Museum, Alvar Aalto, Finland, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, USA, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Great Britain, Grahamstown and Durban, South Africa and many other institutions. 

In 1971 he held his first of several solo exhibitions in Windhoek and represented South Africa at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1972.  In 1974 he took up at the position of artist-in-residence at Rorke's Drift, where he produced unique colored woodcuts. During the next several years, Muafangejo exhibtied his work in South Africa, New York, Finland, England and Germany.

In 1987, Muafangejo died at the peak of his career of a heart-attack, in Namibia. The next year, the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, sponsored a retrospective exhibition of his work, and a second retrospective was held in England from 1990-1992. 

Muafangejo is best known for his linocuts of figures, religious and historical scenes. His images have a strong narrative quality and  illustrate African traditions. His images are all black and white prints, and upon his death left more than 5000 linoleum cuts – producing an astounding  single finished print (one/per day) for 20 years!

 In 1994, an art center in Windhoek was named in his honor.

Muafangejo's graphic motifs were taken from everyday life, history, from his immediate surroundings and the political atmosphere. Whatever the subject, his works are most memorable for their direct, clear subject, for their narrative foreground, and for being composed often around a very dramatic incident. 

The aim of his work was to show difficult conditions, and speak the truth about important events ,causes, people; to view Muafangejo's work as social/political, but they are really about telling truths and passing on cultural stories as one often sees in non-western cultures and African villages who pass their heritage verbally through public gatherings. Indeed, this man's complete oeuvre is staggering in its numbers, but his integrity to visually relate a story about what he saw and the tenacity to keep at it in spite of an oppressive society, is admirable. How many of us can do the same, or choose to do the same concerning issues that eat at our gut? I believe there is room in the artworld for more like Muafangejo, and hope more artists/printmakers will join his ranks.

Awards:

1981: Republic Festival, Durban 

1983: International Graphic Competition, Frechen, Germany

1985: Stanswa Biennale, Windhoek (most outstanding artist).

1987: Vita Art Now Award 

1988: Standard Bank National Arts Festival (Guest Artist Award).