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Nicholas Hlobo | Yongamela Ubumnyama | 2022

27 August - 10 November 2022
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Yongamela Ubumnyama marks Nicholas Hlobo’s first exhibition with Goodman Gallery, featuring new work that explores a shift from minimal use of acrylic paint to a less inhibited approach, incorporating the unwieldy medium with signature materials ribbon and canvas.

Hlobo is known for creating hybrid objects, intricately weaving ribbon and leather into crisply primed canvas alongside wood and rubber detritus. Each material holds charged associations with cultural, gendered, sexual and national identity, creating a complex visual narrative that references ideas around postapartheid nationhood and bodily healing.

Using the metaphor of himself as a surgeon, Hlobo treats the canvas like a physical being, ready to be cut open and sewn up at his discretion. For this latest series, Hlobo embraces acrylic paint as a primary material in his toolbox, continuing to sculpt the canvas with multicoloured stitching but alongside bold streaks of paint.

Artworks

Acrylics paint and ribbons on Belgium linen canvas
Work: 120 x 180 cm
Acrylics paint and ribbons on Belgium linen canvas
Work: 120 x 180 cm
Leather, ribbons and acrylic paint on Belgian canvas
Work: 160 x 250 x 10 cm
Unavailable
Leather and ribbons on cotton paper
Work: 101.5 x 66 x 4 cm
Unavailable
Acrylic paint, leather and ribbons on Belgium linen canvas
Work: 160 x 250 x 7 cm
Unavailable
Leather, wood, steel, skull and ribbons
Work: 100 x 260 x 140 cm
Acrylic paint and ribbon on cotton canvas
Diameter : 120 x 2 cm