In Wonder Buhle Mbambo’s striking painting This is For Where I am From, realism collides with the surreal nature of dreams and abstract thought. The figure’s radiant hair, bright teeth and decorated shirt shine against the deep darkness of the background. With nothing separating the colour of the figure’s skin and the background, this painting recalls Kerry James Marshall’s famous Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980), a small work depicting a nearly invisible black man, dressed in black over a black background.
Mbmabo’s portraits are deeply personal responses to his life and consider intergenerational relationships in contemporary Zulu communities. Common to all of his paintings is a spare, single –coloured background and the star-flower motif, here magically appearing on the skin of his sitter. Devoid of objects or architecture, sitters exist in illusory spaces where realism and spirituality coalesce. The flowers reference a particular flower in South Africa which, when burned, serves as a medium to communicate with ancestors.
Wonder Buhle Mbambo (b. 1989) is a South African artist living and working in Durban, South Africa. He received his formal training from the BAT Centre visual arts residency program in Durban (2010) and the Velobala Apprenticeship Program at the Durban University of Technology (2011-2013). International exhibitions of his work include Michaelis Gallery, Cape Town (2017), Durban Art Gallery (2018), The Art House, Wakefield (2018), and Unit London, London, (2020), Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud), curated by Destinee Ross-Sutton at Christie’s, New York (2020). He has been the recipient of numerous international artist residencies, including the Bremer Kunststipendium Art Grant, 2016, the Royal Overseas League Scholarship to become at Artist in Residence at The Art House in Wakefield, UK (2018), The La Brea Studio Artist Residency, Los Angeles (2020).