Dr. Esther MAHLANGU — a South African national treasure
Disclaimer: The information provided in this episode comes from multiple sources and is not my scientific studies or discoveries. All authors and sources are credited at the end of this article. Thank you!
Welcome to HerArt podcast, a project for art lovers, especially art created by women. In our eleventh episode, we will talk about Dr. Esther MAHLANGU — the first person to transfer the traditional Ndebele style of mural painting to canvas. My name is Nata Andreev and I am going to tell you seven curious facts that you didn’t know about the artist that is known for her preservation of the Ndebele culture through her beautiful, large-scale contemporary paintings.
Curious Fact #1
Mahlangu was taught how to paint by her mother and grandmother. The artist started perfecting her craft using traditional soil paint from the forests and by the rivers. By the time she was a teen, she was an expert at executing murals using a wide range of paint colors. Mahlangu is no stranger to the title of ‘first’, she’s been at it since birth! She is the first of nine children. She has six brothers and two sisters. “My mother and grandmother used their hands and I was taught to paint with the chicken feather,” Mahlangu once said in an interview with the Sunday Times.
Curious Fact #2
Traditionally, Ndebele women decorate the exterior walls of houses with elaborately painted patterns and graphic elements, symbolizing important events such as weddings or other celebrations, thus the walls are used as active communicative media within the community. Esther Mahlangu has separated these decorations and patterns from her people‘s traditional art of painting. In the form of pictures, vessels or carpets, she has constantly brought it into new contexts, thereby combining her artwork with items used in everyday life.
Curious Fact #3
Using a chicken feather rather than a paintbrush, Mahlangu applies thick black outlines and vivid colors. She creates her compositions without the help of preliminary drawings or a ruler for straight lines, painting freehand with incredible precision, and deciding on the shades as she proceeds. As with a younger generation of artists, Mahlangu may use acrylic paint today, which opened up an entirely new color palette, but when she first started, she worked with natural pigments she made herself and cow dung, limited to yellow, white, ocher, black and red hues. “Acrylic paints have allowed me to use many more colors than I could have with natural pigments,” she notes. “What many find interesting about my artworks is that although they are based on traditional Ndebele designs, they are still very modern and current. They can fit into a home or office anywhere in the world and don’t appear dated.” This move to blend tradition and modernity has elevated the art and helped to showcase the Ndebele people’s contribution to contemporary art.
Curious Fact #4
Esther was discovered after researchers from Paris saw the paintings on Mahlangu’s house in 1986, they invited her to create murals for an exhibition of international contemporary art called the Magicians of the World. Three years later she flew to France and lived there for two months and painted a house in front of thousands of spectators.
Curious Fact #5
Esther Mahlangu‘s initial collaboration with BMW was in 1991, where she was asked to paint a BMW Art Car. Esther’s first car — following a lineage that includes Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and many other well-known male artists of the Western canon — has done a lot to keep the history and magnitude of Ndebele painting alive. 25 years later, the company commissioned the artist to paint the interior panels of a BMW Individual 7 Series, with the one-of-a-kind car going up for auction at the Frieze Art Fair in London in October 2017. Talk about great things coming together. Thomas Girst, an art historian, author, and Head of Cultural Engagement at BMW says BMW’s decision to commission Esther was because of her ability to blend the traditional with modern, making her now-recognized Ndebele contribution to contemporary art.
Curious Fact #6
Last year the University of Johannesburg decided to honor Mahlangu with an honourary doctorate for “her legacy as a cultural entrepreneur and educator, skillfully negotiating local and global worlds”. When the world-renowned artist isn’t exhibiting her work all over the globe, she spends time mentoring young artists in the KwaMhlanga district in Mpumalanga. Her students learn how to mix pigments and paint straight lines freehand and without sketches, using their fingers or chicken feathers.
Curious Fact #7
In July 2019 Renowned artist, Dr. Esther Mahlangu was set to receive the award of Officer in the French Order of Arts and Letters at a special celebration that coincides with the local Bastille Day celebrations at the French Residence. The award will be presented on behalf of the French Minister of Culture during the celebrations in Pretoria. The award recognizes artists for their significant contribution to the enrichment of the arts and literature in France and abroad.
Thank you so much for listening to the eleventh episode of HerArt podcast — a project for art lovers, especially art created by women. If you want to follow more of what we do, find us on Facebook and Instagram. Tune in next month for our last episode from the second season when I am going to tell you about Louise BOURGEOIS — one of the most imaginative sculptors of the 20th century. See you later!
References
SowetanLIVE | Alberton Record | The BMW Group PressClub | joburg.co.za | Forbes
