My paper presents a critical discourse on African vernacular rooted imageries in the contemporary sculptures of Ntuli, the ideas they convey to viewers and how Africanness is indicated in each depiction produced between 2007 and 2016. I read Ntuli’s contemporary sculptures as African vernacular rooted because he appropriates in them cultural imageries from engagement with African contexts. Five images of his sculptures and installations were purposively selected for thematic and visual analysis. I adopt visual hermeneutics theory, formal analysis and cultural history methods for the reading of each work. The narrative reveals that Ntuli’s vernacular imageries reflects black South African men and a woman rooted in past and present socio-political events in South Africa. The thematic interpretations of the imageries reveal ideas on massacre not merely during apartheid but in post-apartheid South Africa, torture of victims detained without trial, anti-racialism and reflection on a historical hero from Zulu culture.
My paper offers an interpretative approach using visual analysis. In doing so, the paper contributes a discourse on artworks by the South African artist, Nelson Makamo, and focuses on the images drawn from black children. And "the predominant theme, black child, is examined as African vernacular rooted images. He uses the motif of the African child to reflect on different" (James 2020, p.1) lived experiences of black children in South Africa. Thus, his paintings and drawings were selected and "analysed for their formal content and contexts, and the discussion is framed by the insight gained through interviews with the artist" (James 2020, p.1). While several ideas are reflected in each of the works analysed, the works highlight the contemporary social issue of homelessness experienced by rural-urban migrants, the early training of a black child in carrying out responsibility, the socio-ethical humanism in African communities, especially in the upbringing of black African child, and the effects of technology on regard for African cultural values in a young African child who adopts headphone in the postcolonial era. Through these, it is argued that Makamo's representations of "black African children engage a discourse that contributes to global contemporaneity" (James 2020, p.1).
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