Faceless and colourfully patterned figures entwine and dance together in Sthenjwa Luthuli's brightly coloured carved wooden reliefs and woodcut prints. Hand-crafted, the works connect to Luthuli's Zulu heritage and spiritual sense of self.
Read MoreBorn in Botha's Hill in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province, Sthenjwa Luthuli grew up surrounded by Zulu culture. Traditional Zulu dress, incorporating vibrant patterns made with beads, contributes to Luthuli's later fascination with colour and circular forms.
Disillusioned by his formal education, Luthuli turned to his roots through art. Luthuli, already creative from an early age, was introduced to contemporary artmaking in 2010 when he attended visual art classes at the BAT Centre in Durban.
Luthuli enrolled the following year in the Velobala Art Class, run by the African Art Centre at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). Through this he was elected to join the DUT Velobala Mentorship Programme in 2012.
Luthuli cites the work of Yinka Shonibare and Wangechi Mutu as major artistic influences, alongside a number of other artists that includes Gerard Sekoto, Ephraim Ngatane, and Edward Hopper.
Sthenjwa Luthili's art revolves around woodcarving, a medium that the artist chooses both for its challenges and its historical use in African sculpture.
Sthenjwa Luthuli's artistic process begins by sketching his figures and patterns on an MDF woodblock. He then carefully begins to carve out his forms using a chisel and mallet—a process that can take more than three months to complete. Lastly, the artist applies paint to each part of the woodblock, followed by a layer of protective varnish.
For his woodblock prints, Luthuli will similarly carve out his designs before applying them in ink and paint to canvas. For each print, the artist experiments with the application and arrangement of colour so that each printed iteration is slightly different.
Sthenjwa Luthuli's prints and wooden reliefs are both characterised by their shimmering surfaces, created by vibrantly coloured and intricate patterns. Evocative of elements of traditional African clothing and design, these patterns are dominated by circular and curved forms, as the artist avoids the severity of sharp lines and edges.
Headless, patterned bodies with uniform black hands and feet, Luthuli's figures are abstracted and anonymous. They communicate visually through the contortion of their bodies in dance-like movement. In Solidarity – Ubumbano (2020), as its title conveys, presents an image of three bodies hand in hand, floating harmoniously upward. Life Lessons (2020), on the other hand, presents a more fraught image of bodies restricted and divided.
These nameless, headless figures occupy an abstract space somewhere between physical and spiritual worlds. Through his patterns, Sthenjwa Luthili depicts what he calls 'the Unknown Space'—a harmonious space Luthuli describes as 'apart from the existing world in which we live.' It is meditative state that the artist enters to encounter his ancestors and to find his own sense of self and inspiration.
Finding and retaining ones identity is a recurring theme in Luthuli's work. Luthuli's painted woodblock work Inkaba Yami (2020) references a birth ceremony in which the umbilical cord is placed at the centre of the family village as a reminder for the child to always remember their origins.
In 2012, Sthenjwa Luthuli worked with three other Durban artists and German artist Edeltraut Rath on a mural design for the Concordia Tunnel which runs along the Schwachhauser highway in Bremen, Germany.
Sthenjwa Luthuli's Inkaba Yami show at WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town in 2020 was the artist's first solo gallery exhibition.
Luthuli's group exhibitions include The Medium Is The Message, Unit Gallery, London (2020); Liminality In Infinite Space, Mike Adenuga Centre, Ikoyim and African Artists Foundation, Victoria Island, Nigeria (2020); Sasol New Signatures, Pretoria Art Museum, South Africa (2017); Business of Art, Beautiful Things Gallery, Eshowe, and African Art Centre, Durban, South Africa (2013); and Who am I, Durban Art Gallery (2011).
Luthuli has also exhibited widely at art fairs, including Turbine Art Fair, Latitudes, FNB Art Joburg, and Investec Cape Town Art Fair.
Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2021
