In the Silence of the Drum, 2022

Simphiwe Ndzube   Emerging artists

Simphiwe Ndzube is from Hofmeyr, Eastern Cape, and lives and works in Los Angeles, California, and Cape Town, South Africa. He has a BA Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town.

Ndzube's work is characterized by a fundamental interplay between objects, media and two-dimensional surfaces; stitching together a subjective account of the Black experience in past and present-day South Africa from a mythological perspective. Recent exhibitions include Isithunywa so Moya | Messenger of the Spirit, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2022, solo); Masemola Road, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town (2022); and Oracles of the Pink Universe, Denver Art Museum, Denver USA (2021, solo). His work is collected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Musée d'art Contemporain de Lyon, France; Iziko South African National Gallery, South Africa; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, South Africa; Rubell Museum, and many others.

Narrative influences include Ben Okri, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, and Zakes Mda. In particular, Ndzube highlights Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community by Wendy B Faris and Lois Parkinson Zamora which describes magical realism as "a mode suited to exploring—and transgressing—boundaries, whether the boundaries are ontological, political, geographical or generic. [It] facilitates the fusion, or coexistence, of possible worlds, spaces, [and] systems that would be irreconcilable in other modes."