Coming of age with Wallen Mampondera
Hurongwa (Plan) (2024)
The artist Wallen Mampondera has an exhibition showing at SMAC Gallery in their Cape Town exhibition space. Titled “Kura None” the show features the artist latest collection, executed with found materials like egg cartons, waxed thread, metal rods and wood. The artist has an experimental approach for his canvas-based pieces, finished with the formalism of a traditional canvas and the experimental spontaneity of found materials.
The title which translates from Shona as “mature and then see” is common saying in the language that which speaks to personal growth and responsibility in the viscidities of adulting.
Works are executed with a painstaking deliberateness that transforms the material to concentrated forms and colours that symbolise being consciousness of transitions and the moment of growth.
This is exemplified by the piece titled “Application”, egg crates, calico clothe, palm tree seeds and waxed thread on canvas. The piece is an example of assemblage motif that permeates the collection. Dominated by light blue egg crates and interspersed with the cloth the piece assumes a measure of depth and immediacy that pronounces the flat surface.
Application, 2024, blue.
The piece “Kura Uone (Cracked in Faith 1D)” is also finished with the impact of a pronounced surface with depth and an assemblage effect. A fissure in the middle of the canvas adds dimension to the cost surface, the artist challenges the viewer by infusing materials that are principally flat but is able to achieve a sense of depth.
Kura Uone, Cracked in Faith 1D, 2024, black
Crown -3, 2025, white-cream
With the piece Crown 3 the artist eschews the traditional canvas, and exhibits a piece with a raw and rustic finish. The unfinished effect gives a sense of the organic and it makes the work operate with the experimental penchant. The piece is circular and arched at the top with metal rods along the arch frame and palm tree seeds forming a rug effect drooping on the wall.
These works symbolise the measure of variety of material and creative influence the artist has grown up with. “Crown 3” is a lie e about the versatility of conception and execution. It is about how assemblage has become a means to discover with every step or connection when creating. Since he relies on nature and what is organic and informed by variety within the same piece at times, Mampondera has created an exhibition that is sentimental and eclectic.
The work titled “Mupanda(Class)” is an achievement of eclectic sentimentality. Finished with a military canvas, card boxes, rope and waxed thread, the piece is also exhibited with the unfinished effect, with the canvas drooping with an uneven hem, characterised by rope, cardboard boxes and waxed thread. This is a large piece with a light moss green and brown colours dominant. It has an unfinished measure that implies continuity and form.
