JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African artist Blessing Ngobeni first picked up a paintbrush during a nine-year stint in prison, drawing fellow inmates and birthday cards to “kill time”.
This month, the now renown 35-year-old showcased his work at South Africa’s FNB Art Joburg, a leading contemporary art fair featuring artists from across the continent, back in full swing after a two-year pause linked to the pandemic.
In front of colourful surreal canvases stood a painted set of antique armchairs and sofas, inspired by an eerie discovery in 2016 of a chair in North Georgia allegedly stuffed with the hair of black slaves.
“It was story that I needed to work with and bring it to life,” Ngobeni told Reuters. “(In) things that we own, lies a secret, lies DNA, lies memories, lies pain of the other people.”
(Reporting by Taurai Maduna; Writing by Sofia Christensen; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Frank Jack Daniel)
