giant steps: featuring motlhabane mashiangwako
Motlhabane Mashiangwako began his fine art studies in the house of Geoff mPhakati, a tireless cultural worker and activist who mentored a generation of fine artists and jazz musicians in the sixties and seventies. Under the tutelage of such masters as the late Fikile Magadledla and Winston Saodi, Mashiangwako soon developed into a distinctive stylist. Although his first works were unmistakably political in their subject matter he soon moved away from overt polemics and became known for his studies into materials such as stone, rock, sand and wood, which he would burn or melt onto mixed media canvasses. Mashiangwako infused these works with a cosmic afro-spiritualism that was highly influenced by the writings of Cheik Anta Diop. His current work retains a strong period feel, there is a timeless quality, as if Mashiangwako has been entirely unconcerned with the vagaries of fashion, with digital media, with all the hip and epemeral fancies of the art world - but has solidly continued his afrocentric cosmological studies, uses his canvasses as self-contained time capsules spreading his vision of an afro-humanity freed up and operating at full potential. These are spiritual canvasses which speak the language of myth - truly ancient to the future.
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