At Standard Bank Gallery, Blessing Ngobeni’s “Ntsumi Ya Vutomi” investigates the purpose in the human experience

Standard Bank Gallery is proud to present Ntsumi Ya Vutomi, a solo exhibition of recent work by Blessing Ngobeni. Picking up where he left off with his voluminous Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year show, Chaotic Pleasure (2020), with Ntsumi Ya Vutomi, Blessing Ngobeni takes only the best elements to evolve a style that is more lyrical than in previous years.

His work often responds to a reluctance to confront the brutality of black life, brutality that has been Ngobeni’s unwavering artistic focus. This Exhibition showcases Ngobeni’s expansive skillset in his ability to work across a vast array of materials, figuration styles, and formats. The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, installations, and video animations therefore one might expect a show bursting at the seams.

The artist, however, has purposefully opted not to clutter Standard Bank Gallery opting to satiate rather than overwhelm the viewer. Using his 2020 SBYA virtual show Chaotic Pleasure as a departure point, Ngobeni continues to explore the all-encompassing violence of the post-colony and its impact on black lives while experimenting with varied compositional techniques and materials. “I’m working with the experiences that one goes through,” he says, “examining the circumstances that allow others to learn and grow, while others feel discouraged to do things. It is a way of reflecting while looking forward.”

Ngobeni has never shied away from confrontational depictions of the rapacious nature of capitalism, of late, fur, cotton wool, and fabric have expanded Ngobeni’s storytelling palette. New materials allow him to expand on and delve into new narratives and visual metaphors. He points particularly to a collage titled Mirrored Soft Life, in which fabrics such as cotton and cotton wool are mined for metaphorical meaning within the context of his painterly storytelling. “I see cotton as this wound,” he says, “a representation which goes back to what I call cotton children, the slaves. The cotton becomes our inheritance, like a pain that never ends.

Curated by Thembinkosi Goniwe alongside Nkuli Nhleko, Ntsumi Ya Vutomi is something of a survey exhibition (Ngobeni prefers to think of it as “a time-lapse”) in which viewers can expect familiar works as well as hitherto obscure series such as Skeletons at Work, in which the artist turns his familiar style of jagged figures on its head, introducing rounded, stripped-down bodies in sparse urban environs.

“It was a different way of treating my work,” says the artist of the series, which was shown for just ten days at Everard Read, Johannesburg, and was subject to positive feedback. “It was also a move away from collaging and a way of bringing the marrow of my work out into the open.” The show evenly captures the many moods of Ngobeni; buoyant, playful, didactic (as always) but also reverential in the sense that he proudly wears his influences on his sleeves, throwing knowing nods at the likes of Dumile Feni, Gerard Sekoto and Jean-Michel Basquiat. With the homages, the paintings are loosed from being unrelenting scenes of suffering and bondage and into the realm of cross-generational collaboration. Ntsumi Ya Vutomi runs at the Standard Bank Art Gallery from 03 August to 16 September 2023.

Exhibition credits & details

The exhibition opens to the public on the 3rd August – 16 September 2023. The Standard Bank Gallery is located on the corner of Simmonds and Frederick streets in central Johannesburg, and offers free, safe undercover parking on the corner of Harrison and Frederick streets.

Gallery hours:

Monday-Friday: from 8am to 4.30pm
Saturday: from 9am to 1pm.
Entrance to the exhibition is free.