This week our online fundraising auction features work by Colbert Mashile.
Artist: Colbert Mashile
Title: Imbrasia (Embracing)
Medium: Monotype
Size: 50 x 65cm
Price: R 8 400 (excl.VAT)
To place your bid send an email to auction@artsouthafrica.com Put the name of the work in the subject line and the bid you would like to place. Please insert your contact details in the body of the email. Should you wish to place a bid on all 4 works, state this with your bid.
All sales are subject to the following terms and conditions:
Bidding increases in increments of R150.00 per bid
You will be advised if and when you are outbid and can then place a counter bid
Alternatively you can indicate the maximum bid that you wish to place
The work goes to the highest bidder as at 1pm on Tuesday 20 August 2013
All bids are legally binding
There is a minimum reserve price
Prices exclude VAT and postage (for buyer’s cost)
There is no seller’s or buyer’s commission applicable
Bidding closes on Tuesday 20 August at 1pm
Payment can be made by EFT, credit card or Paypal, work will not be dispatched until payment is received in full.
To consign a work please contact suzette@artsouthafrica.com
About the Artist
Colbert Mashile was born in 1972 in Bushbuckridge in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. Mashile says, ‘I come from a place that is shrouded by powerful cultural norms and customs.’ These customs, such as the ritual of circumcision (which both he and his wife have undergone), informed his earliest work, and he sought refuge and healing through art.
Colbert Mashile explores the psychological impact of traditional circumcision and initiation rituals on initiates. He also explores the often-problematic narratives of collective cultural determinants within these communities. As Colbert Mashile has matured, the psychological underpinnings are still evident, but his imagery has transgressed these limitations to begin addressing issues such as home, language and the natural landscape.
Mashile comes from a family of teachers and was expected to join the family trend on completion of high school. While studying in Pretoria he became curious about the art that he saw in gallery windows on the streets of Pretoria. This led him to the Johannesburg Art Foundation and then to a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Colbert Mashile has risen to prominence on both national and international level. His work is infused with the natural and mystical elements that are part of his physical and psychological environment. In nearly every work, what emerges is a subtle tension between an invasive nature and a sense of serenity. It is this dichotomy that is so engaging.
This artist has an uncanny ability to “tune into” universal psychological archetypes in his work. These images are completely based in his African identity and yet they link up with the universal. His horned figures that loom over men, coffin-like vehicles and vast landscapes fill his prints. Mashile’s fine sense of colour compliments his forms, which seem to celebrate a connection to the earth.
Mystical figures, phallic images, pods, huts and organic shapes are but some of the visual stimuli, which abound in Mashile’s recent work. The commentary on the relation of humans to the environment is unquestionable. Minuscule figures stand unobtrusively atop high structures surrounded by open fields. Some of the paintings depict a clear concern with masculinity. Horns dominate the structures, conveying male aggression.
Mashile, a quiet individual, reflects on his use of symbols and icons. He comments that it simply shows the ‘truth about the land and its people and thus my existence in South Africa’. This poignant statement reflects someone who has a clear understanding of the prevalent issues in South Africa. Mashile has found an individual way in which to artistically communicate his own concerns and those of society as a whole, and he does so in a remarkable manner. His work references various elements of more traditional art-production techniques (printmaking and painting). But, within this production, he isolates the personal narrative as the loudest voice within a cacophony of layers of meaning and reference.
