Sphephelo Mnguni

The Sampling: Thinking inside the box

One can tell a great deal about a people by what they deem important enough to remember, to create moments for, and what they celebrate.
My practice journeys through nexuses of blackness, culture and modernity locating pride in narratives of Blackness. With painting as my primary medium, I explore black portraiture as a means to engage the Black figure in their innateness - illuminating narratives of Black life deliberately echoing culture, contemporary discourse and celebrating all dimensions of Blackness. My work traverses an emerging African modernity underpinned by an urban black experience and visual culture - showcasing an interplay of art between South Africa and the world, illustrating how integral Black cultures are to the development and understanding of our modern world.

Inspired by intersections of selfhood - I seek to interrogate feelings of a permanent state of hybridity - oscillating between cultures, places, and identities. Through a juxtaposition of a rich and muted aesthetics, I invite the viewer to explore a visual balance between the dichotomy of Blackness as an expansive unknowable monolith and an intense generator of culture.

My body of work seeks to galvanise power by subverting colonialist artistic grammar to service a celebration of a new African cultural subjecthood - finding pride in narratives of subjective blackness, re-orienting the audience to view the subjects of portraiture as regal and beautiful.