Esther Mahlangu: how the famous South African artist keeps her Ndebele culture alive

Esther Mahlangu’s retrospective of her world famous art was first shown in Cape Town and has now opened in Johannesburg. The 89-year-old South African visual artist is best known for her colourful large-scale murals in the traditional patterns and colours of the Ndebele people of South Africa – once famously displayed on a BMW as part of a global advertising campaign. But how is she regarded by her people and what does her work represent? We asked Sifiso Ndlovu, an expert in the art and identity of the Ndebele people, to tell us more.

Who is Esther Mahlangu?

Esther Nostokana Mahlangu was born on 11 November 1935 in the Middelburg area of South Africa’s mostly rural Mpumalanga province. Today she lives in Mthambothini village, a few hours away.

Mahlangu didn’t attend any formal schooling but her vibrant and distinctive artwork has earned her honorary doctorates and luminary status in contemporary African arts both locally and internationally. She grew up watching elders like her grandmothers doing wall paintings in the homestead and began to imitate them. She practised over and over until she had learned to master the art of producing patterned Ndebele ornamentation.

Her work was first picked up by the Botshabelo open air museum in Middelburg, where she showcased her wall paintings. She attracted international interest from a team of French researchers in 1989. They invited her to France to take part in a project to paint the halls of the famous Centre Pompidou gallery in Paris. Her first-ever trip in an aeroplane was to became a pivotal moment that would lead to trips across the world, to Japan, Portugal, the US, New Zealand, Italy, Spain… Today Mahlangu is regarded as the global face of Southern Ndebele material culture.

Her artworks are an expression of Ndebele-ness through which identity is preserved, maintained and continued across space and time.

Guests at the at the handover of world-renowned Ndebele artist Dr Esther Mahlangu new art studio in Mthambothini Village on September 12, 2024 in Siyabuswa, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images/City Press/Tebogo Letsie)

How do the Ndebele use wall paintings to express identity?

For hundreds of years, the Ndebele people have used architecture, mural painting and beadwork to express that they belong to a distinctive identity. This material culture became particularly important as they began to become dispersed – starting in the 1800s with war against the colonial boers and heightened in the 1940s by the onset of apartheid and white minority rule in South Africa.

As they lost their land and became dispersed, Ndebeles held onto their painting, architecture and beaded dress to help preserve their sense of belonging and identity. They continued to paint their homes and maintain architectural designs as a way of expressing who they were and defending the loss of their identity. Their material culture has evolved to express cultural resistance and continuity.

South African artist Esther Mahlangu's artwork 'Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu' is on display at the Serpentine North gallery in London, Britain, 09 October 2024. The work is on display from October 2024 to 28 September 2025 and is the artist's format UK mural. EPA-EFE/NEIL HALL

A mural of Esther Mahlangu on April 08, 2022 in Siyabuswa, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images/Papi Morake)

Wall paintings were mostly used to express Ndebele values, marriage and other everyday expressions of identity such as women’s role in the domestic space. Paintings were mainly done by women and they reflect gender roles in the community. Through their paintings, women were made socially visible and came to be seen as guardians through which Ndebele identity was maintained across generations. This was especially true in the absence of men, who were largely pushed out to find migrant work as farm labourers or in the cities.

At first, in order to make red, black and white paint, clay was mixed with cow dung and soil. Today acrylic paint is mixed with a little bit of clay and the designs now include complicated geometric patterns combined with illustrations of objects like light bulbs and aeroplanes.

What about the beadwork?

Mahlangu also uses dress to display her cultural identity. She always dresses in the beaded blankets commonly worn by Ndebele women. Her beads reflect her age and marital status. This is extended to her bracelets and haircuts.

Dr Esther Mahlangu during the Cape Town Art Fair held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town on February 17, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa.  (Photo by Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Esa Alexander)

Dr Esther Mahlangu at the Induction Of Five South African Gallery Of Legends at Sanctuary Hall, Freedom Park on November 07, 2024 in Pretoria, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images/Frennie Shivambu)

Some beaded adornments are only worn on special social occasions – like welcoming initiates when they come back home from initiation schools. Age sets and stages of growth from childhood to adulthood are expressed through different kinds and colours of beaded adornments.

Beadwork or painting is passed on to each generation and becomes a conduit for the preservation and transmission of Ndebele cultural identity. Thanks to a figure like Mahlangu, this material culture is made all the more visible in the digital age.

How does she develop tradition and also experiment with it?

Mahlangu changed from the use of natural colours to brighter, acrylic paints. While staying true to Ndebele traditions, she is not scared to experiment. In her work, she has used, for example, the colours of the democratic-era South African flag, which is a popular part of the country’s nation-building project. Even though she uses modern acrylic paints, she still mixes them with clay in the old way.

She also engages with modern technology and the commercial art world. In 1991, for example, she was commissioned by BMW to paint one of their international art cars. This was again because of her Botshabelo museum exhibition. She was invited to Johannesburg to paint the car, which she did over a period of two weeks using chicken feathers.

Renowned South African artist Dr Esther Mahlangu (left) during her visit at the National School of the Arts in Braamfontein on September 20, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sunday World / Mduduzi Ndzingi)

Between prestigious gallery exhibitions and public art commissions, she creates diverse products from her work. She sells coffee cups, decor pots, beaded blankets and photographs of her mural art.

As a custodian of Ndebele culture, she teaches young boys and girls to do wall paintings, beadwork and traditional Ndebele dances in the backyard of her homestead in Mpumalanga. She has never wavered from her commitment to preserving Ndebele culture and passing it on. DM 

This story was first published in The Conversation. Sifiso Ndlovu is a Lecturer of Political Science at the University of Mpumalanga. This article was updated to mark the Johannesburg opening of the exhibition. “Then I Knew I was Good at Painting”: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective will be exhibited at the Wits Art Museum (WAM) in Johannesburg until 17 April 2025.