Ntsumi Ya Vutomi at Standard Bank Gallery | Art.co.za Art Exhibition Listings

Standard Bank Gallery is proud to present Ntsumi Ya Vutomi, a solo exhibition of recent work by Blessing Ngobeni. Picking up where he left off with his voluminous Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for visual arts exhibition, Chaotic Pleasure (2020), with Ntsumi Ya Vutomi, Blessing Ngobeni takes only the best elements to evolve a style that is more lyrical than in previous years.

His work often responds to a reluctance to confront the brutality of black life, a subject that has been Ngobeni’s focus since his early days as a professional artist. Ngobeni’s belief in art as a transformative tool emerges from his recognition of how inseparable political consciousness is from one’s lived experience. Having experienced a difficult childhood that has included homelessness and, later, incarceration, Ngobeni took to art in prison, witnessing the humanity it brought to the lives of fellow inmates. From there he joined the Tsoga (Wake Up) Art Workshops and later on went on to study printmaking at Artist Proof Studio.

The building blocks of his visual language, for example, in particular his knack for mixed-media collage, emerge from his early struggles with affording a steady supply of work materials. This fact of circumstance, his continuing hypervigilance about his surroundings and his increasing grounding in post-colonial theory have all combined to create a style that is accessible, allusive and constantly breaking its own limits.

This exhibition showcases Ngobeni’s expansive skill set, in particular his ability to work across a vast array of materials, figuration styles, and formats. The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, installations, and video animations, setting up the expectation for a show bursting at the seams. However, the artist has opted to satiate rather than overwhelm would-be visitors to the Standard Bank Gallery.