Drawn to Her Work For Years

Mahlangu’s work was reassuring to encounter as someone who creates pattern-based artwork. Seeing how she carries Ndebele visual traditions forward with such confidence and clarity made is inspiring. Her work exists comfortably outside of easy labels, moving between what’s often framed as “traditional” and “contemporary” without needing to explain itself. ‘I would continue to paint on the house when they left for a break. When they came back, they would say: What have you done, child? Never do that again. After that, I started drawing on the back of the house, and slowly, my drawings got better and better until they finally asked me to come back to the front of the house.