Umlandeli, 2025
Collected ochres and primer on blanket
95 cm x 86 cm
Artist’s Statement
Umlandeli is part of a body of work that is a practice-based research project that explores the concept of trauma in the Xhosa rural Eastern Cape, South Africa. The body of work looks at how trauma is interpreted, engaged with and the different states it comes in through a reflexive perspective. In the body of work, I work with ingcawe and collected ochres to reference the rural. Through collecting and working with ochres, I invoke ukusula, a mural painting practice in the Mpondo rural area, to think about healing in practice/as a practice.
Umlandeli speaks to supernatural-induced trauma and hints at ukuthwetyulwa or ukuthwebula through hybrid figuration as a metaphor. Through the artwork, I look at inkolo nenkolelo − belief and superstition and blur the line between the two.
