Always imbued with themes about travel and what is abstract about those memories this collection features figurative works executed with mixed media, from ink from ball point pens, water colours and pastel, utilised the depth and forms of the works to articulate vignettes about narrativised memories as artistic bounty.
Themba Tsotsi on the work of the South African artist Moshekwa Langa
South African visual artist Moshekwa Langa had another solo exhibition with the Stevenson Gallery titled “Bele BeleTsieng”. Inspired by a Tswana proverb the article will show that this collection is inspired by external forces to affect a sense of transformation and narrative forms in his work. Always imbued with themes about travel and what is abstract about those memories this collection features figurative works executed with mixed media, from ink from ball point pens, water colours and pastel, utilised the depth and forms of the works to articulate vignettes about narrativised memories as artistic bounty. It will be shown that this was achieved by creating works that are figurative and abstract, that have the impact of assembled memories and disparate unity.
The piece titled “Phenomene” encapsulates a visage and it’s abstract body. Expressed in the background with a prominent eye, the face echoes the repose of the face of the body. He utilised the depth of the piece to impact a measure of internal reflection and its disembodied assemblage.
Finished like a transparent and skeletal drawing the work has a revelatory aspect that relies on layers of depth to achieve the ambiguity of unity and separation.
With the piece titled “Passports” echoes of his abstract minimalist surface orientated lines can be discerned. A figure with a beret stands in front of a tree like image executed with a blue and red pen with a black water colour background to emphasize depth. Langa’s works inundate the canvas, since this collection is figure based, this strategy eschews his sense of intricacy and rather affects narrative and a sense of assembly.
The work “Right of way reserved” also resounding with the puerile images of his usual form, sees two figures facing each other, expressionless and occupying different planes of the canvas, with a black and white board in behind one of them. This measure of disparate inundation can be discerned in the piece, the title of the work continuing the theme of travels and encounters.
The collection is imbued with the sentiments of realised resolutions. The title of the exhibition with its pastoral connotations invokes a metaphor for the intellect as a source of harvest. The works themselves representing a salvaged bounty of the intellectual space. This sense of assembly and disparate operates to form themes collected memories. Langa usually relies on abstraction and minimalist means to express what is emotional about his themes, with figuration be affects connotations of molding and relinquishing in the intellectual space.
With the work titled “Sibonelo” a figure can be discerned baring his arms in a cradling gesture, it a drawing with a red pen of hollow figure, resounding with realisation. The sun in the depths of the piece with a blue background. Langa’s work and their emphasis on light and bright colours is characteristically featured with ubiquitous implications of light. This work becomes unified by light; the images are carried by the light. The titled implies an overarching or guiding light.
This collection and its title were inspired by the impossibility of collapse of what is natural and organic about creative intellectual spaces. The works being symbolic of a harvest that salvages a period of production and its intermission.
