Phumulani Ntuli | A Navigation Guide to Kwanqingetshe

“One day a man stared at the reflection of the sun  in a lake. Lost in reverie, he found himself some where he had never been before. It was nothing  like the earth.” 

- Ben Okri, The Freedom Artist. 

Mirrors have an ethereal, occult place within the  collective culture of humanity – they are often seen  as conduits offering a clear, unblemished reflection  of what truly is. Yet in mirrors, we often see a haunt ing inverse of our reality, and the clarity which mir rors show us is often unwelcome. To search our re flections in a mirror is an uncanny, jarring experience  as we are never able to see ourselves in a singular  way. Every observance is tinged by our own expe riences and imaginations, as well as the experienc es of our culture, mythologies, and expectations.  Mirrors, therefore, may not show what is, but rather,  show what we expect to see. 

Phumlani Ntuli’s work is influenced by this idea of re flection – an analysis of not only the self, but how we  come to define ourselves through our personal and  collective stories. For Ntuli, this is an intimate explora tion of boyhood into manhood. In his exquisite work  on canvas and through collage, the real and the  fantastic are blended, as we cannot find the self  without delving into both our realities and our imag inations. These ideas define each other rather than  being mutually exclusive: the real is underpinned by  fantasy, and the fantasy is given depth by reality.  Human beings are an amalgamation: a beautiful,  complex tapestry of these kinds of contradictions –

and only in blending seemingly opposite ideas can  there be any harmony with, or the revealing of, the  self. 

Ntuli’s work is vivid, sharp, and colourful, yet it  evokes a fluid, otherworldly quality – like a dream  in which you are not quite sure if it is a nightmare or  not. It embraces the darkness present in both our  reality and our mythology: there can be no progress  towards understanding the self or our collective  futurity without embracing the darkness that has  influenced and even created us. 

This mass of contradictions, this smashing together  of disparate ideas, suggests that the understand ing of the self is akin to a quantum reality: where  all things and possibilities exist at one time. And like  quantum mechanics, only through our personal  observance of phenomena can we influence the  outcome. The self is a mass of realities and fantasies  that all seem to exist at the same time, and each  time we observe ourselves, we influence a different  definition of who we are. Ntuli explores this reflection  and observation through an embracing of reali ty, fantasy, science fiction, a dystopic past, and a  hopeful Black future. 

Phumlani Ntuli’s work loosens the boundaries be tween the real and the occult – offering a glimpse  at who we are and how we have come to define  ourselves. There is an integrity about his work, both  evoking a playful sense of wonder while still under standing the need to observe and embrace reality.

The show is currently on at Bag Factory

Curated by Ruzy Rusike