I Paint What I Like

12.12.22 - 01.12.22
Group Exhibition at
Kalashnikovv Gallery,
Johannesburg

Featured Artists
Seth Pimentel
Lazi Mathebula
Muofhe Manavhela

Exhibition Statment

All multi-disciplinary, all Johannesburg based, the artists Manavhela, Mathebula and Pimentel’s works articulate the nuances of their personal and collective experiences by delving into themes such as heritage, indigenous knowledge, personal and shared stories, fashion, digital media, mental health, gender, sexuality, and ritual, to name a few.

Finding a visual language for the entangled, beautiful, messy world that we live in is actually much harder than one would think. The three artists in I Paint What I Like introduce waves of new consciousness by translating histories, legacies and murmurings of consciousness into innumerable adaptions and renderings, giving their impressions through the medium of painting.

Muofhe Manavhela’s vibrant work communicates the experience of a young black woman navigating the modern South African landscape. Inspired by artists like Lady Skollie and Andy Warhol, as well as her personal experience of a 21st century black womanhood, Muofhe depicts a more nuanced perspective of the daily experiences of black women. Muofhe has taken her place as a social commentator by using her art to explore the positioning of Black women in the landscape of a society that underestimates them. Her work looks to deconstructing current and harmful narratives and reconstructing our perceptions of Black femmes and the space of Black womanhood.

Lazi Mathebula believes that real creativity involves transforming the ordinary and in a sense, turning realism on its head. His work reflects a recognisable fixation on fine detailing, the intricacies of purely African stories and a tasteful use of luminous colour to create long-lasting visual impressions. Mathebula’s current artistic practice occupies a space that is concurrently post-digital, post-street and post-apartheid. Reflecting an interest in the relationships between different sectors of South African society, the history of indigenous communities and the relationship between fashion and ritual, his practice investigates the people and the textures that seem to define the urban reality of Johannesburg.

Seth Pimentel focuses on pushing the boundaries of visual art’s conventions by attempting to merge traditional art mediums and digital work, into a hybrid of experimentation. Continuously drawing and developing his style, the artist endeavors to navigate and highlight mental illness through his work. Seth uses his practice to document his own personal experiences, and aims to create a “visual bridge” of understanding with his subjective experiences of dealing mental health issues to a wider audience. With his previous exhibition “Why So Blue Brown Boy” (2022), Pimentel specifically delved into his own identity politics by illustrating the intersections between his life, social circles, his mental health and his mixed race family background.