A Whole World Away
Exploring Moshekwa Langa's Sanctuary Exhibition
Growing up, I was a child with an overactive imagination. I still am. A person with an overactive imagination, not a child. I would run into a space in my brain where the colors around me turned into rockets and outer space, sometimes into the ocean, and even headless pink elephants fighting ninjas on the ocean.
In those moments, I would sometimes hear a voice in the distance calling my name. Waking up from those little adventures, my eyes would wander around to nothing but white walls and green couches. My nose to my mother's chicken stew and rice. Finally, my mind to the tragedy of reality. A tragedy that is the fact that all we ever do is be aware, pay attention, and worry. All these situations that we get to experience all-year round. Then we enter a new year, and they circle back.
Sanctuary
I always thought that it was a relief that we could sometimes get away from it. Even for a few moments, take ourselves to a whole world away.
And it is not just one world away that a single person creates for themselves. They can have dozens. If you are not lost in thoughts of bliss for ten seconds, you are watching a trilogy of your idea of the best films in the world. You are singing in the shower to go walk your dog at the park. I also use my writing to escape some of the distresses that are packaged and delivered along with our modern life. What visual artist Moshekwa Langa does is painting. Through the process of creating his works, he half-forgets the conditions of his life; and his mind shelves away his negative feelings towards them for that whole while.
Sactuary, a solo exhibition that is being hosted by the Stevenson Art Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, is one such a collection of works that portray the world we live in and a transcendence of our spaces within it. Mental or physical spaces of self-possession and serenity. The works are in abstract form featuring brightly colorful sequences that make reference to human figures (Walker), natural objects (Sun), artifacts of use (Conduit), points in time (Past Midnight), a state of mind (Reflections), and spaces (The Pond) – to name just a number of the artworks. With the most prevalent colors being aqua blue, yellow, red/orange, and green. The colors are layered onto each other, through a complex dripping method (that brings definite shape to the subjects). Taking the appearance of dream-like/semi-psychedelic figments.
Reflections
An ocean blue in its entirety, with scattered fragments of red and orange, a few shades of green, some peach, and a grey area. The lines and shades of blue appear to be wavy and shifting, much like a body of water being illuminated by sunlight in the day and in turn reflecting that light back to us.
In the midst of this natural/scientific phenomenon, we can also see ourselves, not only the sunshine in the body of water. The shapes of our head and every line that has created the different parts of our face, and the parts of our body all the way to our feet. We are confronted into delving deeper into the instances of our existence. Reflecting on those very experiences we have had to escape from each time.
Reflections come into our sanctuary very elegantly and cautiously. Never to alarm us in any big, particular way. Becoming a chance for us to place matters into perspective. Connecting us to the parts of ourselves that able to guide us through those very challenges of being in the world. Taking form of sanctuaries themselves.
Langa's art pieces are a history of himself; with traces of his origins, the circumstances and occasions in his life as he went through them. As he remembers them for what they were. This specific artwork can be thought of in the sense of a mirror. One through which he saw his physical self, his psychological self and character, his place in the world, and all intricate elements of being.
The idea is of one racing through those previous moments in time, to think carefully about them in as safe a space as they could possibly create in their mind. Hopefully reorganizing their psyche and shifting towards more desired outcomes for the future. Like the currents of the ocean – as fueled by energy, moving in a special direction for the wonderous survival of sea and all other life on Earth.
Past Midnight
What first comes to mind at the absolute thought of midnight and past midnight, are insomnia and overthinking. The states of your mind where you are reduced to nothing but a blob on your bed, looking up at the ceiling. Merely thinking about this past week or the next few days. It is pitch black outside, when you are not considering the street lights and the cars possibly passing by.
Surprisingly, Langa has portrayed these earliest and darkest hours of the day as if they were on a bright day. The painting resembles that of Reflections, yet with waves that seemingly shift towards different directions. Which is unlike any body of water, but more like one's mind trying to piece together all the memories and thoughts they ever have. Piecing them all together at this single point in time. In an attempt to create a single big cinematic essence.
The signature scattered spots of color can be seen in more volume and thus in closer range to each other. The red, the peach, the green, yellow and orange, with the grey seem like chaotic pieces trying to exist together on one ground, therefore trying to be at peace with each other's presence The chaotic pieces of a single person's life. For example, the loss of home making peace with their sense of individuality.
There is so much relation between Past Midnight and Reflections. In that particular states of mind, which is the latter, occur in certain periods of time. Especially, those that are much quieter – like around and little after midnight. This is also illustrated in how both works have mostly similar formal characteristics.
We would understand Past Midnight as a kind of sanctuary because it is so quiet, to the point where you find yourself (whether or not it happens willingly) wandering around in your mind. You fortunately find haven at the center of those random thoughts about yourself and your life under its conditions. Psychologically, you discover the so-called bigger picture. Eventually making peace with it, or at least coming to conclusions that give you the chance of peace with it. Even if that sense of peace lasts only until then.
The Pond
The theme of a body of water (weaved into this exhibition) comes full circle with The Pond, which claims it explicitly. Rather than suggesting it through the flow of the human mind or that of time, as with Reflections and Past Midnight.
This piece portrays two human figures, each being of a red and yellow color, fishing in a red pond with fencing. In the background, is a yellow 4x4 van parked on a red surface, above which is a big and bright yellow arm. The horizon is represented by an almost indistinct white line with some green, immediately above the van. The sky and the ground are different shades of blue. Both without the oceanic feel of the two previous artworks.
Given how Langa is on the artistic journey of documenting the events of his life in his body of works, The Pond can be concluded as one particular fishing trip he went to with someone. The painting itself standing in for a long-awaited photographic image of that moment in time. Painted also as the birds flying by would have seen it.
A pond, as the natural or sometimes artificial entity, can be described as a small body of fresh water, that is home to many living things – fish, plants such as water lilies, and algae. Unlike oceans and rivers, ponds remain still. In an emblematic sense, the pond and the activities that surround it (fishing, camping) signify the desire and willingness of the human mind to connect deeply with the natural world around us. Essentially away from the mostly unpleasant make-up of a typical urban existence.
Langa's search for tranquility, or at least his own idea of it, is further demonstrated by the hand in the painting. The hand stands in place of the sun and also takes up the sun's color. The human hand is of anthropological and social magnitude; going into the realms of creation, communication, and protection.
A protection from any form of anguish – by keeping us engaged in some physical activity that impermanently suppresses the negative emotions and ideas. Communication between us and our known worlds (that is, him and the city, and him and this pond). And the creation of these very worlds (which are certain aspects of reality and sanctuary), as well as the paths and transportations we come to use to get around them.
Evaluation
Moshekwa Langa's exhibition does fulfill its intentions of showing us his relationship with life. Specifically, his interactions with himself and his mind, his home, natural elements, the objects around him, and time itself. In the sense of how he views them and how he assumed other creatures have viewed them as well, when he mentioned "a bird's eye view of a landscape".
He placed himself at the center of it all. An existence at many places and countless points in time. With a given mind to perceive and live through them, and assess them, escaping or engaging with them at his will. Thus taking us on a journey of his human experience and the capacity of his safe spaces, and in turn leading us to be very much thoughtful of our own.
The exhibition itself also serving as a sanctuary for us who have experienced it; in all its colorful and bright, "solar and oceanic" splendor. The same way that it was a sanctuary for Langa as he created all the pieces.
Author's Notes
All the information I have had for the article and the direct-quoted parts came from The Viewing Room at Stevenson, the artist’s biography at Andrew Kreps Gallery, and here you can find this really interesting document about the symbolisms of the human hand.
I always try to write about artworks that I like, that have touched me in some specific way. Moshekwa Langa is one of the artists that inspire me, mainly because he is originally from my home province – Limpopo, here in South Africa. It inspires me, makes me feel like "hmmm I could also get out of here". Hahaha. As that flies with the wind.
There are just so many artists whose artworks I truly love (and only dream of having). It becomes so hard for me to choose who I will write about next.
I also hope to someday write about art that forces me to get in touch with it, or that I just completely could not understand. That would be so much fun and test my limits as a writer. Oh promises, promises. Until then, thank you for reading my thoughts on this wonderful exhibition. If you truly enjoyed my writing, there is more where that came from.
Do use the links provided above to Stevenson Gallery, to see more of the collection. Brilliant stuff. Contemporary art wins. If I honestly had it my way, I would write about all the pieces, but this essay is long enough already and I know you have places to be, so... farewell, my friends.
