Ngaphansi kwesithunzi sakhe (under His Shadow)
Sheep hide on canvas
63 cm x 80 cm
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Engraved on sheep and goat hide are quiet traces — Grandmother, Mother, Granddaughter. A living archive. A tree that keeps growing, reaching beyond what we can see. A gesture toward infinity.
The work is born from family photographs — fragile, fading, yet full. It speaks to memory’s delicate threads and our endless desire to hold on. Beneath folds of hide lie images, partially hidden, waiting for hands and eyes to search. Layers upon layers of time, of tradition, of love passed down.
There is presence, and there is absence. The hide, once a symbol of Zulu tradition, becomes something more: a quiet personal sermon on faith. On needing a Shepherd to guide us through life.
Once alive, once warm with breath, now it bears the marks of another kind of life. To print and engrave on hide is to press into what was once living. It is an act of reverence and resistance. A gesture of permanence against the slow erosion of infinite time. The force of engraving cuts through the surface, echoing the depth of inheritance, of faith, of grief.
Sorghum seeds frame the work- small, sacred, resilient. They recall ceremonies of life and death. They remind me that nothing truly ends. That which we plant, will rise again.
What still stands?
The memory.
The prayer.
The seed.
Faith