Vuyile Cameron Voyiya (1961-2024), who died recently after a short illness, made an indelible mark as a printmaker, art educator and videographer. 

Voyiya was introduced to printmaking at the Community Arts Project in 1985, where he was part of CAP’s first cohort of full-time visual arts students (alongside the late Billy Mandindi, Sophie Peters, David Hlongwane and a few others).  The Sun will Rise, a linocut print from the time, was a precocious indicator of his bold vision and technical prowess as a visual artist. One can also read into this image an ability to engage with the fraught character of the zeitgeist, without resorting to overtly political themes. Further, the work expresses an interest in music that recurs frequently in his aesthetic. Voyiya left the two-year non-degreed course at CAP midway, commencing a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1986. He graduated in 1990, having majored in printmaking and sculpture. He did, however, continue to attend classes at CAP — his first celebrated print series, Rhythm in 3/ 4 Time, was cut at CAP in 1988. Over the years, Voyiya’s prints would feature in several important exhibitions, including Art/Images from Southern Africa (1989) at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, Art from South Africa (1990) at Modern Art Oxford in the United Kingdom (then Museum of Modern Art Oxford) ), Siyawela (1995) at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now (2011) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; as well as in seminal art historical surveys such as Sue Williamson’s Resistance Art in South Africa (1989) and Philippa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin’s Printmaking in a transforming South Africa (1997). His work features in numerous public and corporate collections, including MoMA, The Philadelphia Museum, Iziko South African Museum, Durban Art Gallery, Wits Art Museum as well as the Constitutional Court Art Collection,  MTN Art Collection and the Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection.

Vuyile Voyiya, Black and Blue 5, linocut (2005)

Complementing his practice as an artist, Voyiya was active as an educator. He taught part-time for several years at CAP, and taught art to youth experiencing homelessness for the children’s rights advocacy group Molo Songololo. Employed full-time in the education department at the South African National Gallery in the early 1990s, he worked there for over ten years. There his contributions included translating educational materials into isiXhosa. During his tenure at SANG (later The Iziko South African Museum), Voyiya completed his Honours in art history at UCT. He would later resume his relationship with UCT, lecturing printmaking and drawing part-time at Michaelis, where he was busy at the time of his passing. His contribution as an educator extended to his impact as an informal mentor for younger and emerging artists, a role which sometimes took the shape of curated exhibitions, such as Herstory (AVA, 2004) and Umsi (AVA, 2005). One can thus note that Voyiya impacted on the development of numerous artists at various levels across Cape Town for almost four decades.

Vuyile Voyiya, The Sun will rise (1985)

Voyiya’s career encompassed the production of various video documentaries. It is particularly important to acknowledge his contribution as an informal archivist, a function he performed through extensive video documentation of artists and events, especially in Cape Town. Much of this documentary work remains unpublished, a potential resource for future generations of researchers. A hint of the depth of this archive can be seen in the film The luggage is still labelled: blackness in South African art, which he co-produced with art historian Julie McGee in 2003. The film was controversial in its foregrounding of Black artists’ perspectives of an artworld failing to transform itself from its history as a domain of whiteness. The central tenet implied by the title — that the normative frame is constructed by whiteness, with white artists able to function as artists whereas Black artists frequently have their professional status qualified by their race — must surely have been informed by his personal experiences. One thinks particularly of his position as one of the first Black African fine arts students at UCT and the second Black African employed as an educator at the SANG. Voyiya thus, at times, bore the burden of representation of the excluded Black artist, and indeed broader Black community. It is perhaps no coincidence that many of his works are emphatically black and white, depicting singular or coupled figures set against impenetrably black backgrounds. This contrast is less strident in later works, such as his Black and Blue series (2005), where there is a stronger sense of tonality. This no doubt reflects refinement of his technique, but it is hard to not also read this gradual shift in his aesthetic as analogous to his own journey as a creative individual determined to transcend the historical inequalities of difference in the quest to manifest full rights as an emancipated human. 

Voyiya’s striking compositions, his distinctive graphic technique, his trove of video-documentary material and his pervasive influence as an educator ensure that his impact continues to resonate —he may have moved on, but his mark is embedded in the environment. 

Note: I am grateful to Thembinkosi Goniwe, Jo-Anne Duggan and Hayden Proud for clarifying details about Vuyile’s career.