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Inga Somdyala
Recent Monotypes, 2022My work is guided by considering the essence of certain substances like ochre, chalk, salt, soil. Their abstraction is a behavioural response to the process of making.
Inga Somdyala
b. 1994
Queenstown, Eastern Cape
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Recent Monotypes, 2021
Recent Monotypes, 2022
b. 1994
Queenstown, Eastern Cape
Follow
Projects
Recent Monotypes, 2021
Recent Monotypes, 2022
Ukuthetha
Uziphikisa, 2022
Oil based monotype, tarlatan, thread, red ochre, gum arabic
‘An expression of self-contradiction, to say yet unsay. to live in difficulty with oneself. the essence of red ochre for me is it’s history, to remain red at the moment of cultural and social upheaval. I have been thinking about redness as a modality, an adaptive way of being, the same but different, ancient and modern. the substance has been used to contradict the processes of printmaking here as well, to soil tarlatan; suspended with a contrasting monotype, a murky surface suggests palimpsest. a red hand-stitch creates undulating horizon lines reminiscent of text, the labour of hands making the landscape speak (Coetzee, J.M. 1988).’ – Inga Somdyala, 2022
Indalo, 2022
Monotype with ink and ash
‘In The Quiet Violence of Dreams, Duiker’s short pithy sentences left me ruminating hours after putting the book down. “Nothing is more abstract than God” (2001: 62) prompts a new reading of abstraction for me. My work is guided by considering the essence of certain substances like ochre, chalk, salt, soil. Their abstraction is a behavioural response to the process of making. Indalo is creation, it is allowing things to be as they are, to accept substance in the pursuit essence. We have been experimenting with monotype using ink and ash. This emerged from a shifting process; acquiring variable interpretations both tangible and metaphysical.’ – Inga Somdyala, 2022
Inga Somdyala is a visual artist born in Queenstown, Eastern Cape in 1994 and currently living in Cape Town, South Africa. Somdyala explores aspects of the cultural, political and social negotiations of the post-apartheid generation. Working primarily in print media and installation, his work is an evocative and tactile exploration of isiXhosa cultural history within South African political history as it intersects with his lived experience.
Somdyala has taken part in a number of group exhibitions locally, most recently in Premise with the independent curatorial collective Joe Prussian (2021), Matereality at the Iziko South African National Gallery (2020), the head the hand at blank projects (2019) and AMAQABA Vol. 1 – a collaborative exhibition with Xhanti Zwelendaba at Eclectica Contemporary (2018)
In 2019, Somdyala completed his MFA studies at UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Art.
Oil based monotype, tarlatan, thread, red ochre, gum arabic
‘An expression of self-contradiction, to say yet unsay. to live in difficulty with oneself. the essence of red ochre for me is it’s history, to remain red at the moment of cultural and social upheaval. I have been thinking about redness as a modality, an adaptive way of being, the same but different, ancient and modern. the substance has been used to contradict the processes of printmaking here as well, to soil tarlatan; suspended with a contrasting monotype, a murky surface suggests palimpsest. a red hand-stitch creates undulating horizon lines reminiscent of text, the labour of hands making the landscape speak (Coetzee, J.M. 1988).’ – Inga Somdyala, 2022
Indalo, 2022
Monotype with ink and ash
‘In The Quiet Violence of Dreams, Duiker’s short pithy sentences left me ruminating hours after putting the book down. “Nothing is more abstract than God” (2001: 62) prompts a new reading of abstraction for me. My work is guided by considering the essence of certain substances like ochre, chalk, salt, soil. Their abstraction is a behavioural response to the process of making. Indalo is creation, it is allowing things to be as they are, to accept substance in the pursuit essence. We have been experimenting with monotype using ink and ash. This emerged from a shifting process; acquiring variable interpretations both tangible and metaphysical.’ – Inga Somdyala, 2022
Inga Somdyala is a visual artist born in Queenstown, Eastern Cape in 1994 and currently living in Cape Town, South Africa. Somdyala explores aspects of the cultural, political and social negotiations of the post-apartheid generation. Working primarily in print media and installation, his work is an evocative and tactile exploration of isiXhosa cultural history within South African political history as it intersects with his lived experience.
Somdyala has taken part in a number of group exhibitions locally, most recently in Premise with the independent curatorial collective Joe Prussian (2021), Matereality at the Iziko South African National Gallery (2020), the head the hand at blank projects (2019) and AMAQABA Vol. 1 – a collaborative exhibition with Xhanti Zwelendaba at Eclectica Contemporary (2018)
In 2019, Somdyala completed his MFA studies at UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Art.
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