Artist of the Day: Sphephelo Mnguni
Sphephelo Mnguni is an artist born in Durban, South Africa. He started painting in high school and pursued art professionally since 2010, involving himself in community art projects before pursuing a bachelor of technology in fine art at the Durban University of Technology.
His work according to him is about “Africanness, blackness, pop culture and surrealism.” His influences mainly stem from his environment. Growing up in the township of Umlazi, his works reflect his daily life as a black African person and the community he is surrounded by.
Women in his life have also played an important role. His work ‘Iqiniso: The Truth' showcases women as protectors and those who maintain the well-being of their families and the greater community. The maternal figures in his life were the people he looked up to and saw as heroic.
Mnguni’s contemporary artwork aims to challenge the perception of blackness and the stereotypes around it at present. It is unapologetically black. Most of the skin tones of his figures are rendered in dark values, with small shifts of black and dark tones.
He sometimes uses his friends to depict the subjects in his compositions, and some of his paintings have featured icons in black culture such as Pharell Williams, Michael Jackson, and Virgil Abloh.
His use of figurative works is a way of self-realisation, and how one places themselves in the world. He feels like a parent, with his artworks being his children. When his artworks leave his studio, he gives them the free will to decide what impact they have in society.
Through his travels within his art career, he had observed the need for representation of black people within art spaces, in particular prestigious spaces.
This manifested itself for Mnguni in 2022, as he participated in the ‘When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting’ exhibition at the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town South Africa.
This exhibition, sponsored by Gucci, presented works by black artists that spoke of self-representation and celebrated blackness and how it has been commemorated and imagined through the experiences of black artists today.
Write-Up Credit: @mphojacobsart