Anelisiwe Maphumulo

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Anelisiwe Maphumulo is a South African visual artist born on the 14th of August 1996 at Osindisweni, Ndwedwe, a village situated north of Durban. 

She studied BA Health Sciences and Social Services (Community and Health Psychology) at the University of South Africa. In her last year, she joined an art class called the Rebirth Art Project by the Amasosha Art Movement. 

Her work is about the restoration of the image of native Africans. Anelisiwe challenges the social, economic and cultural injustices that Africans have been subjected to by colonialism through referencing images of Africans in impoverished settings and reimagining them in vibrant settings and self-dignifying positions. She creates a world of possibilities where people’s resilience is celebrated and their human dignity is protected to promote unity. 

To achieve this the artist uses glass beads to demonstrate the resilience and strength of African people. Beads were introduced into Africa by settlers who plundered the property of natives by trading a bag of beads for livestock. However, Africans turned this distortion into something incredible; in South Africa the beads ended up being used as a language which used different colours and patterns to encode messages. For instance, Ucu (beaded bangle) would have different meanings in different colours. To mention a few, red means “my heart is on fire for you” and blue means “I would go even to the ends of the world for you; together we will go far”. Taking these meanings into consideration, Anelisiwe sees her work as love letters to her fellow Africans and herself.