Makiwa Mutomba

Current Review(s)

'Women'

Makiwa Mutomba at artSPACE durban

I first came across the work of Zimbabwean painter Makiwa Mutomba  a few years ago, at the KZNSA, where he presented a series of portraits produced in brightly contrasting hues, and  rendered in an apparently rough impressionism. At the time I was struck by Mutomba's distinctive style and its pop sensibility, and those portraits continue to lurk in my visual memory despite the fact that I never gave the exhibition the examination it deserved.

In Mutomba's latest exhibition, at artSPACE Durban, the body of work on display is more expansive, moving beyond the front-on portrait to embrace movement and an exquisite grasp of body language. In 'Women' Mutomba presents various scenes in which a diversity of African women fill the frames. They are mostly presented in groups of three or four, their physical composition utterly familiar to anyone who's looked around at the human landscape of South Africa, even as the images stand firm against any suggestion of the generic. Mutomba's women are  recognisable precisely because he gives them a specificity, rather than making them stock characters.

25 January 2010 - 19 February 2010

Listings(s)

'Women'

Makiwa Mutomba at artSPACE durban

Makiwa Mutomba is a Zimbabwean painter currently based in Pretoria. The recent winner of an award at the Societe Nationale des Beux-Arts in Paris, this is Makiwa’s second solo exhibition at artSPACE durban and consists of oil paintings of African women.

25 January 2010 - 19 February 2010

'Andhra Pradesh'

Makiwa Mutomba at KZNSA Gallery

The solo exhibition 'Andhra Pradesh' by acclaimed Pretoria-based artist Makiwa Mutomba is inspired by his recent cultural exchange visit to Hyderabad, a city in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Mutomba’s exhibition consists of small to miniature oil paintings in his signature pallete-knife style. He notes, 'As an artist, I seek color in everything I see and so, upon my arrival in India, I was immediately drawn to the colours of the place… It is an artist’s paradise, the colours of the saris and the painted dwellings, the Rangoli (floor painting using either sand, flowers or rice)… Colour is certainly very important to the Indians – I was fascinated to learn that there is even a Festival of Colours'.

12 October 2010 - 31 October 2010