opinion
Simphiwe Mbunyuza’s ceramic sculptures are a powerful synthesis of ancestral traditions, personal history, and contemporary expression. His recent exhibition, UMTHONYAMA, at David Kordansky Gallery in New York (January 16 – February 22, 2025), presented a body of work that transforms the physical space of the gallery into one of spiritual reflection, cultural storytelling, and artistic innovation.
Subscribe to the Art Spiel Weekly Newsletter. It Matters to us!
SUBSCRIBE HERE
Deeply influenced by the rituals and iconography of the Xhosa people of South Africa’s Eastern Cape, Mbunyuza explores the interplay between material and meaning. The exhibition’s title, UMTHONYAMA, refers to a sacred space where familial and ancestral rituals take place. Traditionally, this space exists within the kraal, an enclosure for livestock, but in the Xhosa spiritual tradition, it also serves as a site of communication with the ancestors. By invoking this concept, Mbunyuza extends its significance into the realm of contemporary art, turning the gallery into a space where past and present, the physical and the spiritual, converge. His ceramic sculptures, with their bold forms and intricate surface textures, become vessels for these connections, offering a deeply immersive and contemplative experience for viewers.
A striking example is MTHIMKHULU, a monumental floor sculpture, standing nearly five feet tall, that embodies the artist’s signature visual language. With its bold patterns, rich textures, and a distinctive lava-glaze overflow motif on the top periphery, the work pays homage to traditional beer production in Xhosa culture, an activity historically tied to both nourishment and social bonding. The surface of the piece is alive with intricate patterns, including depictions of houses and animals, which create a visual language that speaks to the interwoven relationships between land, community, and spiritual heritage.
The graphic motifs of houses, animals, and geometric patterns form a symbolic cartography, not merely decorative but functioning as a visual language that maps personal and collective histories. A conglomeration of house images, for example, represents more than shelter, it is a symbol of community, heritage, and belonging. The presence of animal imagery reflects both the agrarian traditions of the Xhosa people and their deep spiritual and cultural connection to the land. This idea of “mapping” imagery around the surfaces of his sculptures creates both a conceptual and visual record that bridges generations. His ceramics, in this sense, are not static objects but active participants in cultural memory.
Other works, such as NDLEBENTLE’ZOMBINI and INTUKU, feature horn-like protrusions, evoking their ceremonial use in summoning ancestral spirits while also symbolizing resilience and cultural continuity. In Xhosa ritual traditions, the horn serves as a spiritual conduit, used to communicate with and call upon the ancestors. This significance resonates throughout Mbunyuza’s work, where sculptural form’s function both as personal expressions and as broader reflections of a collective spiritual identity.
The recurrence of organic protrusions within his sculptural forms resembling breasts or udders underscores themes of sustenance, fertility, and the essential role of women in preserving cultural traditions. This motif speaks to the historical resilience of Xhosa women, who played a crucial role in maintaining agricultural practices and cultural rituals, particularly during colonial disruptions. By incorporating these elements, Mbunyuza’s work acknowledges the layered histories embedded in everyday objects and gestures, transforming them into symbols of endurance and continuity. This is also revealed in his traditional coil-building technique where he embraces a practice passed down through generations, reinforcing that same sense of historical continuity but at the same time allowing for sculptural innovation. In effect, each coil becomes a marker of time and memory, linking the artist’s hands to those of his ancestors.
Throughout UMTHONYAMA, Mbunyuza’s sculptures act as vessels of history, spirituality, and resilience, not merely reflecting the past but actively reinterpreting it. By merging tradition with contemporary practice, he keeps cultural knowledge dynamic and relevant while challenging dominant Western narratives. His work asserts indigenous South African perspectives as vital and evolving rather than static relics. Through a seamless fusion of technique and concept, he elevates ceramics into a medium of cultural preservation and artistic storytelling, uniting the material with the metaphysical and the ancestral with the contemporary.
All photos courtesy of Doug Navarra.
Make your tax-deductible donation today and help Art Spiel continue to thrive. DONATE
About the writer: Doug Navarra is a visual artist who currently lives in the Hudson Valley of New York State.