Lwando Dlamini

Contemporary South African Artist Lwando Dlamini (b-1992) is from the Eastern Cape but was raised in the Western Cape. Both geographical settings influence his artistic endeavours, which extend from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

Dlamini predominantly employs oil paints and mixed media for his expressive works.

Dlamini views his practice as an embodied experience. He looks to his immediate environment, interpersonal relationships and his own body to inform his work. In conversation with the artist, Dlamini often states that he uses oil paints because he “would like to understand painting better”. This desired understanding is rooted in a praxis that is dedicated to exploring a more guided and “informed intuition”. Dlamini‟s work is visually recognisable, black figures with exaggerated, bodily features superimposed onto colour field backgrounds. His earlier body of work largely centred on personal and institutional violence and the vulnerability it begets. Dlamini‟s use of warm, vibrant colours summons up an atmosphere of care and play. His characters seem to exist in new worlds entirely, they are otherworldly, and yet oddly familiar.