Southern Guild
23.11 - 25.01.2024

I have been waiting a long time for the privilege of writing about Manyaku Mashilo’s work. I remember a conversation with the artist some lifetimes ago about the cosmos and spiritual relativity — falling so deeply in love with her vision and the generosity with which she creates. 

An Order of Being, Mashilo’s first solo exhibition with Southern Guild, soothes me. I walk between the large-scale works, aware of their leaning forward as if reaching back to me, and I feel hollows seal shut in the inner avenues of whatever I’m made of. Not my physical body, but the squirming thing that continues to propel me forward. To be seen physically is one thing, but to be seen spiritually is wholly another. ‘Resonance’ doesn’t thrum deep enough for what the artist’s work accomplishes for me. It lives in the details such as the use of red ochre, which reminds me of the ground from where my own family comes from, and goes beyond those corporeal tethers to create a connection outside of our time. Mashilo’s work reminds me to acknowledge the power of belief, of faith, and the progression and flux that necessitates it and moves us toward our future. 

“We have all known to look to tomorrow in the pit of night before dawn breaks the sky’s surface. Abanye baye ngale, abanye ba wele – but today these textures ask: ‘So far, dear traveller, how have you found your way? How does it feel to be here, how will we know when we get there?’”Julie Nxadi writes in the exhibition text, removing the last of my hold on the physical, and giving me permission to launch myself into the liminal space where the artist’s subjects are already waiting. 

We did not arrive alone. With a force like ours, we dragged powerful things along, hangs beneath the show title. I stood there for a while to appreciate the artist’s effort and attention. Recognition of power is vital to an understanding of one’s future, especially when you’ve been made to feel powerless, susceptible to a tide churning constantly against you. Power has become synonymous with ideals that have irrevocably damaged our society, and it feels so isolating when succumbing to this truth. Yet, power, true power remains in wait. The simple knowledge that I have never been alone, or abandoned to myself was enough when I needed it. My journey to my ancestors was a short one when I began looking for them because they were already waiting for me. That irreducible feeling I’m trying to articulate is present with me as I move between Mashilo’s paintings and the vast world that this body of work opens up to me.  

Notions of travel are evident through the artist’s hand. In Passage to Prayer, smaller figures travel upward while larger-than-life subjects subtly loom over the distance. Travelling is required of the audience too, but standard metrics cannot assume the distance. How about a New way to Pray, stitches together the beginnings of a map, or a guide, connecting varying ideas, outside of religion, that serve to elevate one’s consciousness. There are prompts within the visuality that Mashilo’s themes deliver, pushing the audience beyond passive viewership. There is more than beauty and elevation at play here, there is a freedom that beckons, and this is what holds my awe.

The artist’s linework ranges from sweeping accents of the figure’s appearances to layered strokes that meet between the geographical and astrological, others seem to pour down from the skies themselves. The use of acrylics and ink come together to create what feels like the portraits that would sit at the roots of a lineage. Of those who could be found at the beginning, or the before. The returning gaze in the set of faces is synonymous with a grounded knowing, that juxtaposes their celestiality. The ability to make contact with them occurs through a present connection to a timeless knowledge which they hold in waiting for those who are looking.

I am moved, satiated and returned to myself as I receive Mashilo’s offering, feeling deeply grateful. The final paragraph of the exhibition text cements my love of the show, reading: 

“An Order of Being resists singular compartmentalisation of the self and the cultural practices that have come to define and inform Mashilo’s unfolding sense of the world … This future world does not repress or shame this complexity; it welcomes and holds expansive space for an evolving and indefinable multiplicity.”

As someone who often feels trapped inside of the perceptions projected onto me, I feel a rush of joy at any inkling of the mention of multiplicity, especially when tied together with the weight of a more fulfilling vastness into which to pour myself. As Mashilo’s world and work continue to expand, so will the depths of its blooming ideology, and I will be there when its portal opens again, to see what calls next.