Esther Mahlagu, from the Ndebele to the world

Palm,

He was born in South Africa in 1935 and, although he has received recognition especially in recent years, Esther Mahlagu has dedicated almost his entire life to the preservation of the cultural legacy of his country and his tribe, that of the Ndebele. Above all types of supports, it has been creating pieces that formally refer to the popular designs with which it has lived: works of living tones and geometric abstract forms that also pay tribute to the living presence of painting, an intimate and everyday, in the day to day of their ancestors, starting with their mother and grandmother; Painting certain strokes was a rite linked to the transit of youth to adulthood.

She moves those tones and shapes to contemporary materials and scenarios: to great formats on the occasion of specific projects that do not stop evoking the patterns that ornament the houses of the NDEbele and that mainly perform women. When he works in the constructions of his people, he uses natural pigments mixed with clay, earth and cow’s manure, and instead of using templates and adhesive tape to achieve lines and shapes, handly paint with chicken feathers and a variety of brushes. On canvas, he prefers acrylic, which allows him to explore different scales and a wider colored palette.

Of his first creations destined to live with color and beauty, Mahlagu has made the leap to international museums. Since her work was included in the collective exhibition “Les Magiciens de la Terre”, in La Grande Halle de la Villette de Paris in 1989, this author has exhibited in centers around the world, is part of the collections of the Smithsonian Museum of Washington, the center Pompidou Parisino, the Brooklyn Museum of New York or the Lacma de los Angeles Universidad de Johannesburg, Durban technology, Tshwane or South Africa. Awarded by the UN, has also obtained the order of French arts and letters. Last year he showed the mural in the Serpentine Galleries Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantuhis first public work in the United Kingdom: in sixteen wooden panels, he represented forms and patterns outlined with black edges; Your title, which means I am because you arerefers to the importance of preserving community life and ties between humans and the rest of living beings.

He has also collaborated with not a few commercial firms, especially automobile, such as BMW or Rolls Royce (he carried out an interior decoration for his Phantom model, which is called that is why The Mahlagu Phantom). It does not intend with this to reach notoriety, but support for its roots: the benefits of its sale went to the art school that the artist launched in the province of Mpumalanga, east of South Africa. And Mahlagu seems to be clear about the reasons for his success: a few years ago he declared that he was convinced to generate happiness in whom he contemplates his creations, a need to integrate these into the spectator’s life.

On August 29, Mahlagu arrived in Spain. Thanks to a collaboration between the artist and Alexandra of Cadaval Art Projects, a dozen of his tapestries reached the headquarters in Palma de Mallorca by Gerhardt Braun Gallery, in the “Woven Legends” exhibition. Hand fabrics, refer back to the aesthetics transmitted and perpetuated by the women of their generation tribe after generation, through their clothing and jewels.