Description
Portrait of Johanna, 1996 – Ms. Joanna Mahlangu is pictured beading her characteristic ‘bubble-weave’ necklaces in the courtyard of her home, where she has painted all the walls. Ms. Johanna was one of the first Ndebele women I met in Mpumalanga Province. She explains to me her concerns that the walls “no longer speak,” because expressive family symbols were being eased out of Ndebele wall design patterns and being replaced with external “English” symbols in fashion. Her walls still proudly display her family signs, from her particular Mahlangu clan.
