Nandipha MNTAMBO (b. 1982)
Silent Embrace No.5
2007
digital print on cotton rag paper
173 x 91 cm each
Through her powerful animistic sculptures, videos, photographs and mixed media works, Nandipha Mntambo challenges gender roles and identity, disrupting boundaries between human and animal, femininity and masculinity, attraction and repulsion, life and death. An androgynous, transspecies pulse runs through her work, sparking thought in relation to body politics, identity and the primal connection between humans and animals.
Her distinctive cowhide sculptures are inspired by mythology and the idea of an animal-human species. The idea to work with cowhide first came to Mntambo in a dream. The cured animal hide is draped over her body so that it takes on her form and then set with resin.
In 2017, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa presented ‘Material Value’, a solo exhibition of her work, which included ‘Emabutfo’ (2012), an installation in which dozens of hide/human spectres were suspended in mid-air, occupying the room in a haunting formation.
‘I have used cowhide as a means to subvert expected associations with corporeal presence, femininity, sexuality and vulnerability,’ says Mntambo. ‘The work I create seeks to challenge and subvert preconceptions regarding representation of the female body. Themes of confrontation, protection and refuge play out particularly in relation to inner conflicts and to notions of self-love/hatred.’
Silent Embrace No.8
2007
digital print on cotton rag paper
173 x 91 cm each
BIOGRAPHY
Mntambo was born in Mbabane, Swaziland and currently lives in Johannesburg. She intended to study forensic pathology, but shifted to art making, completing a Master’s degree at Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in 2007.
Her work addresses ongoing debates around traditional gender roles, body politics, and identity. She works in photography, sculpture, video, and mixed media to explore the liminal boundaries between human and animal, femininity and masculinity, attraction and repulsion, life and death.
Mntambo is best known for her figurative cowhide sculptures which allude to the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.
Notable solo exhibitions include Transience at Stevenson (Johannesburg, 2014); Nandipha Mntambo at Andréhn-Schiptjenko (Stockholm, Sweden, 2013) and Faena, a travelling exhibition showcased at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum in Port Elizabeth, and at Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town (2011).
Mntambo’s participation in group shows include Regarding Africa: Contemporary Art and Afro-Futurism at Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2017); the 12th Edition of Dak’Art, the African Art Biennale in (Dakar, Senegal: 2016); Disguise: Masks and Global African Art at Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, USA: 2015); What Remains is Tomorrow for the South African Pavilion (56th Venice Biennale: 2015); The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists (Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt/Main, Germany: 2014), Nandipha Mntambo at the FNB Joburg Art Fair (Johannesburg: 2013) and the 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (Moscow, Russia: 2012).
She has been shortlisted for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize in Canada (2014), was a Civitella Ranieri Fellow (2013), received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art (2011) and the Wits/BHP Billiton Fellowship (2010).