Multicultural Paper: Mmapula Mmagoba “Helen” Sebidi

Joni Hough

March 20, 2010

ARTE 5122

Multicultural Paper:

Mmapula Mmagoba “Helen” Sebidi

Mmapula Mmagoba Sebidi is a South African painter, sculptor, and collage artist.  She was born in 1943 and grew up under apartheid, which greatly influenced her life and her artwork.  Professionally, she uses the name Helen Sebidi. 

South Africa has a long history that predates written language.  Archeological evidence suggests that South African people were trading with Chinese people as early as the twelfth century (SouthAfrica.info, n.d.).  South Africa was colonized by the English and Dutch in the seventeenth century. English domination of the Dutch descendents (known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted in the Dutch establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State and Transvaal.  The discovery of diamonds around 1900 resulted in an English invasion which sparked the Boer Wars.   In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party gained political power and created apartheid.  Apartheid was the social and political policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority governments in South Africa (The History of Apartheid in South Africa, n.d.). 

Policies under apartheid included 1950’s Population Registration Act, which required that all South Africans be racially classified as either white, black (African), or colored (of mixed decent or Asian), the Group Areas Act, which assigned races to different residential and business sections in urban areas, and the Land Acts of 1954 and 1955 restricted nonwhite residence to specific areas (The History of Apartheid in South Africa, n.d.).

Despite the risks, resistance to apartheid existed within South Africa.  A number of groups opposed apartheid using a variety of tactics, including violence, strikes, demonstrations, and sabotage.  These strategies were often met with severe punishment by the government.  Many artists, including Sebidi, created works that protested apartheid in more subtle ways that were less likely to incur scrutiny from government officials.  There was also resistance to apartheid from the international community, which included sanctions from the United Nations.  In 1994 the country's constitution was finally rewritten and free general elections were held for the first time.  Nelson Mandela was elected as South Africa's first black president and the last vestiges of the apartheid system were finally outlawed (Robinson, n.d.).

            

Because of the migrant labor system under Apartheid, Sebidi was raised by her grandmother in rural, Marapyane, while her parents worked in Johannesburg (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).  From her grandmother, Sebidi learned traditional mural painting and pottery.  She was forced to quit school after the eighth grade and at the age of 16, Sebidi moved to Johannesburg to help support her family.  She worked as a domestic servant for a German expatriate, from whom she learned about easel painting (Peffer, 2009 and Arnold, 1997).

            While in Johannesburg, Sebidi studied oil painting from John Koenakeefe Mohl, a figurative and landscape painter, who had studies in West Germany.  From Mohl, Sebidi learned Western styles of illusionism, which she employed in her idealistic paintings of rural life.  Mohl would later encourage Sebidi to create the work that became her first solo art exhibit (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).

            

In the early 1970’s, Sebidi moved back to Marapyane to care for her aging grandmother and to raise her child.  She continued painting idealistic images of rural life and in 1977 she began traveling to Johannesburg monthly to sell her art at the Artists Under the Sun market.  Sebidi’s work, which was mostly apolitical at this time, was popular with white patrons allowing her to make a living from selling her work (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).

After the death of her grandmother, Sebidi moved back to Johannesburg to further study and teach art. In 1985, Sebidi became involved with the Katlehong Art Centre, where she began making pottery and terra-cotta sculptures. The goal of the Katlehong Art Centre was to create awareness about black artists and to teach artists how to market themselves and become self-sufficient. It was also a way to create a professional South African black art, without it being labeled traditional or township art.  At the Katlehong Art Centre, Sebidi created the work that she showed in her first solo art exhibit in 1986.  Sebidi was the first black woman to have a solo art exhibit in South Africa.  In 1986, Sebidi also joined the Johannesburg Art Foundation, where she discovered modern styles of abstraction and collage.  The Johannesburg Art Foundation was an art school where black and white South African artists worked together and it was often under police scrutiny (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, Sebidi has continued to work as an artist in Johannesburg.  She has exhibited within South Africa and internationally and her work is featured in many private collections.  The South African President presented Sebidi with the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver in 2004 and the Order of the Baobab in Gold in 2008 for her excellent contribution to the field of visual and traditional arts and craft (South African History Online, n.d. & Artist’s Proof Studio, n.d.).

            

In Sebidi’s early work, she “opted to render memories of a harmonious interaction between humankind and nature”, such as in 1972’s Rural Scene (Arnold, 1996, p. 137).  She was strongly influenced by the figurative and landscape work of her mentor and teacher, John Koenakeefe Mohl (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).  In this work, Sebidi portrays traditional women’s work in rural South Africa, with three women, each with a child strapped to her back and a basket on her head.   By showing the women from behind, Sebidi treats the subjects as archetypes rather than as individuals.  The strong vertical lines created by the women and exaggerated by the dark baskets on their heads, shows the strength of the African woman. The horizontal lines created by the vegetation on the hill and in the horizontal alternating on pale blues and yellow in the sky implies a sense of peacefulness in the rural landscape.  The diagonal movement of the staggered women, the diagonal lines of the women’s clothes, and the sloping hillside, combined with the bright yellow paint that Sebidi carries throughout the painting creates a feeling of harmony and balance in Sebidi’s work.  This harmony produces an idealistic impression of rural life.

            

Sebidi’s work drastically changed after she joined the Johannesburg Art Foundation (Arnold, 1996).  There she discovered abstraction and collage and abandoned the illusionistic style of her early work.  She spent her first year at the Johannesburg Art Foundation creating figure studies.  She painted a multitude of hands, feet, and portraits (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).  According to the Iziko Museums of Cape Town, Sebidi said, "First I kept on drawing figures in the studio, feet, hands, portraits; and I kept all this rubbish from the whole year piling up on the carpet. At the end of the year I said to myself, 'I want to see if I can grow these up', I took myself away from other people - I said 'Now break all this in pieces and see what comes out.'  What came out was the deconstruction and reconstruction of space and form, of images literally torn apart, fragmented and reworked, reconstituted in collage" (Iziko Museums of Cape Town, 2001).  Sebidi used this collage technique in her 1988-89 piece, The Child's Mother Holds the Sharp Side of the Knife. 

In this work, Sebidi has packed a multitude of images into the picture to express several ideas.  As suggested by the title, this collage addresses the roles of women in South African society.  When explaining this work, Sebidi said, "I see a woman chained, pulling her tradition.  In our language they always say 'yours is yours.'  You've got to handle it, you've got to be, don't let go . . . In African tradition they say it is the woman who holds the sharp side of the knife.  Here, woman is holding the knife in this way and is saying: 'this is what I have to do, and it's my way'" (South African Resistance Art, n.d.).

           

As with many of the collages Sebidi created during the late 1980’s, she has crowded the picture plane with numerous images of people.  These people are so jammed together that in the background they cease to be individuals as body parts are crammed into each other becoming visually indecipherable.  With this technique, Sebidi illustrates the congestion of the urban areas that black South Africans are allowed to occupy because of the Group Areas Act and the Land Acts under apartheid. 

            

The faces of the people in this collage demonstrate another theme in Sebidi’s work.  Most of the faces are created with half of the face in one color and the other half of the face in another color.  These disruptions in color symbolize the schism between traditional, rural life of black South Africans and fast-paced, overcrowded urban areas where many black South Africans migrated to find work.

            

After apartheid, Sebidi’s work took on a lighter note.  In her composition, Hope It Comes Back, she still utilizes the bright colors and fragmented faces that became the signature of her collages, but her images lack the crowded picture plane of her work from the mid 1980’s through the early 1990’s.  As in her early work, Sebidi shows the sky and land with an optimistic, idealistic feel.  In this image, an adult holds up a child to pick a flower as several people watch, as if a tradition is being passed down from one generation to

the next.  The onlookers, though crowded together, still have space around them.  There is a sense of freedom to move around.  Though the people are still shown in a fragmented style, they no longer have to two-tone faces Sebidi used to express the schism between urban and rural life.  The people, with their heavy dark lines, do not seem to have forgotten the hard past, but the bright colors of the people and vegetation along with the title, convey a sense of hopefulness about the future of South Africa.

           

Mmapula Mmagoba “Helen” Sebidi’s work shows the progression of her life, from a girl growing up in rural South Africa, to a woman working under the harshness of apartheid in the crowded metropolis of Johannesburg, then an artist working in a free South Africa who has been honored by the government.  The themes of her work include idealistic landscapes, people crowded beyond decipherability, the struggle of black South African women, the schism between rural and urban living, and hope for the future.  Through Sebidi’s work, students can learn about how an artist’s social, cultural, and political background influences her artwork.

Resources

Arnold, M. (1996). Women and the art in South Africa. St. Martin’s Press. New York. p. 138-

142.

Artist’s Proof Studio (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.artistproofstudio.org.za

The History of Apartheid in South Africa (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www-cs-

students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html

Iziko Museums of Cape Town (2001).  Retrieved from http://www.iziko.org.za/sang/

exhib/2001/headnorth/artists.htm#Helen Sebidi

Peffer, J. (2009). Art and the end of apartheid. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.

p. 67-72.

Robinson, A. J. (n.d.).  Africana Encyclopedia.  Retrieved from http://www.africanaencyclopedia.com/apartheid/apartheid.html

South African Resistance Art (n.d.). Retrieved from http://library.thinkquest.org/18799/

index.html.

South African History Online (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sahistory.org.za.