Tshabalala’s star rising in the art world
Vivid depictions of black women break the stereotypes
It’s difficult to believe that despite becoming one of the more celebrated artists, Zandile Tshabalala is still a 4th-year fine art student at Wits. She is now working towards her graduate show.
Her current paintings are the result of years of experimentation, she says, and of many attempts at getting her vision out of her head and onto a canvas. “I was trying to say what I’m saying now, but it was very hard to depict it. You have an idea but just putting it down on canvas or paper is quite difficult.”
Her depictions of black women in vivid, lush settings seek to recast the stereotypical representation of African women defined only by colour and gender. The subjects in Tshabalala’s paintings are supremely comfortable in their bodies and their environments. With their piercing gazes, they ask the viewer to confront outmoded and conventional concepts of what it means to be a woman of colour; concepts that surround us daily in the media and especially in the larger history of fine art. “These narratives do become internalised, we do apply them to our actual lives, and how we’re treated by other people. It reinforces the idea that we are inferior.”
Her work is sculptural in its aesthetic. Her canvases give the impression of being physical manifestations of an internal world brought to life with bold brushstrokes and vivid colour. Her women don’t shrink into the background. “I prefer to have her in a calm setting. She’s not shy. She’s confident. She’s comfortable in her space. She’s just being.”
It’s clear that Tshabalala draws inspiration from modernist art movements such as cubism and fauvism in the way that she treats her subjects, but she cleverly subverts the traditional ways that women of colour are depicted in these art movements. Her women rejoice in their bodies.
They are not objects which lie open to the gaze of men or are passive receptors to problematic ideas of tribalism, blackness or the “noble savage”. They are what they are and they own their identity. “People need to rethink and look at their associations of those stereotypes and generalisations to Africans,” she says.
She’s aware that there is scope for her work and its use of animal print and foliage to be misinterpreted. “I’m not really trying to create this idea
‘‘ These narratives do become internalised
that this is what Africa is. I don’t see it like that.” Rather, she’s playing on our preconceived notions of the associations that these elements have when used in depictions of black bodies, and asking us to be aware of this process and to question it continuously.
At the moment, she plans to fully explore the medium of painting. “It would be nice to try and learn a bit more about my medium and technique and really try to understand that for a period of time.”
She also hinted that she’s involved in planning for several group exhibitions but kept mum on the details, so keep your eyes peeled for this bright new star in the art world.