Growing up in Hofmeyr in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, Simphiwe Ndzube discovered art at an early age, expressing his creativity by playing with found objects and materials — a ritual that continues to influence his work today.
Through his paintings, sculptural and installation works, Ndzube engages with historical, social and political events of South Africa that interrogate themes of exploitation, occupation, power and symbolism. Weaving together past, present and future, his work engages with crucial and global issues that affect us all.
Q > Tell us about your most unconventional project.
A > My most unconventional project is one that I have not yet realised; I still hope to realise it. It’s a project that combines costumes that I’ve created and characters from my works adapted into a theatre production or film. It would include an orchestra, contortionists, differently abled bodies, and opera singers. With this, I’m thinking about Chagall’s stage sets and Jodorowsky’s films in my approach.
Q > What’s the most satisfying part of the creative process?
A > For me, it has been the ability to access and process the subconscious images when I paint. Because my process is heavily based on the impulse to create and play with imagination, I feel most free and with no limitations. That space is so full of possibilities.
Q > What’s your biggest source of learning/inspiration?
A > I find that a lot of inspiration for my myth making comes from the literary texts that I’ve read: Joseph Campbell, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (an amazing author from South Africa), and Zakes Mda. I also like movies such as Avatar (my favourite) and films by Alejandro Jodorowsky. My surroundings really inspire me as well as sartorial subcultures on the African continent; the resilience and hope of the people in the South African townships that I grew up in is one of the most inspiring things for me.
Q > The greatest challenge you’ve overcome?
A > The greatest challenge that I’ve overcome was transcending beyond the township mentality in a place that’s deprived of opportunities — being able to work and survive the violence in that space in order to be able to participate in a global contemporary art world. In order to do this, I had to overcome fear; I still work on it. I’m always dealing with the fear of being judged or of being vulnerable.
Q > Growing. Rebelling. Corrupted innocence. Trauma — What key experiences have shaped your adult life?
A > I was shaped by a very playful, explorative childhood where I had the opportunity to walk and play as far away from home as I could. One major experience that was truly life altering for me was the loss of my mother in 2008. That shifted everything, and that was the moment when I knew that my artistic practice was what I was called here to do. I haven’t doubted my purpose since.
Q > What assumption(s) do people tend to make about you?
A > I know that my family thinks that I’m always working and that I have no time to relax and not think about work. I know people think that I’m serious, but I’m the complete opposite of that; I appear serious, but I’m a total mess.
Q > Challenging conversations, introspective moments, inspirational triggers, political views, social shifts: which topics do you find yourself debating these days?
A > I’ve had some introspective moments recently. I’ve been debating changes in the way that I’m understanding myself in relation to other people and previous relationships.
Q > Which things do you think the people around you often take for granted?
A > In my community in Cape Town, people take for granted that they have power within themselves to create the people that they want to be — very often they wait for life to happen to them. There is a strong sense of people having goals for when they grow up, but they lack the drive to pursue them wholeheartedly.
Simphiwe Ndzube (b. 1990, Cape Town, South Africa) lives and works in Los Angeles, California, and Cape Town, South Africa. He received his BFA from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts in 2015. Ndzube’s work is characterised by a fundamental interplay between objects, media and two-dimensional surfaces; stitching together a subjective account of the black experience in post-apartheid South Africa from a mythological persepective. Recent exhibitions include Hollywood Babylon: A Re-Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Nicodim, Jeffrey Deitch, and AUTRE Magazine, Los Angeles, USA (2020); Where Water Comes Together With Other Water, The 15th Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France (2019); People, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, USA (2019); Uncharted Lands and Trackless Seas, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2019, solo).
