Londiwe Mtshali is a South African visual artist, born and bred in Durban, South Africa. Mtshali is now based in Johannesburg where she works and is also reading for her Master’s Degree in Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Image: courtesy of Londiwe Mtshali
Tell us about your journey into art?
I actually wanted to be an engineer, I wanted to pursue a career as a civil engineer but that did not work out. I applied for other programmes at different institutions for different programmes but none of those institutions offered me a place to study. My brother suggested that I consider studying art since I was good at drawing, I enrolled at the Centre for Fine Art Animation and Design in Durban and while I was there, I discovered that my interest leaned more towards fine art, I then enrolled at DUT where I completed my Bachelor of Technology in Fine Art.
Which themes do you wish to explore?
At the current moment, I’ve been looking at ‘home’ as a space in my works a lot and that has been really fascinating considering the kind of feelings and emotions that are attached to home and the knowledge that one inherits from the home space itself. I’ve been playing around a lot of different concepts that come from thinking about home and a lot of my works currently are about feelings about home, returning to home, detachment, or dispossession in instances where I had not been at home and I’ve been really trying to hone into that. There are many concepts that have popping up and the most interesting are the ‘invisible labours at home’ which are most often imposed on the girl child and also the ways in which women have been primed to be the ‘homemaker’ and ‘keeper’ of the household, so these are the kind of ideas that I have been meditating on and it has been a very interesting discovery for me because prior, a lot of my work has been about spirituality and how that reflects my family, and on me as a child growing up, so it’s been really fascinating thinking about how some of the works I’ve made earlier in my career and how they correlate as intersecting threads between spirituality and the home space to me – both in a figurative and literal way and it is something that I’ve never thought about before. I can’t give an actual unpacking but these are some of the concepts I’ve been meditating on and it’s been a fascinating discovery.
How has your practice developed over the years?
It has been constantly evolving with time. I started off with printmaking and sculpture, I used to make heavy, traditional pieces, I then started experimenting more during my third year of studies, I experimented with photography and writing. I now do installation art and photographic art however I wouldn’t call myself an installation artist nor a photographer. I think my practice is open and it is dependant a lot on what I want to get out there and what I want people to experience.
Any fun projects you are currently working on?
Lots of fun projects, there is a project that I am part of, I can’t disclose full details as of yet but it’s a community-based project in Kwa-Zulu Natal, my Master’s is also a fun project and of course, Occupying The Gallery at SMAC Gallery in Jo’burg.
Follow Londiwe on Instagram @londiemtshali
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