Thanks to her marvellous skill and ability to carry her heritage and culture forward, Dr Esther Mahlangu is an icon in the local art world. Mahlangu has been painting since the age of 10, learning from her mother, grandmother, and women in her hometown of Mthambothini village in Mpumalanga.
The title of her retrospective is a nod to this lineage and training ground – referring to the age at which she was invited to paint the front of homes alongside other artists in her community who recognised her burgeoning talent.
Colourful and geometric, her work honours the symbolic and visual language of traditional Ndebele art. For decades, she's been creating large-scale and site-specific pieces to this effect – from painting a BMW art car in 1991 (she was the first African artist to be commissioned for this) to recently having a mural installed at the Serpentine North garden in the UK.
Mahlangu celebrated her 89th birthday on Nov 11, 2024. Her retrospective, Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting, is a survey of her wide-ranging and in-depth work over the years. We loved seeing it in Cape Town and are overjoyed that it's having its Joburg debut at WAM.
Join the opening of Mahlangu's solo at WAM in Braamfontein on Tue, Nov 19 from 18:00. The exhibition runs until Thu, Apr 17, 2025.
