We found about Asehmale Ntlonti because she is a member of the female performance collective iQhyia alongside Bronwyn Katz and Lungiswa Gqunta, two artists that we deeply appreciate and with a same strong focus on sculpture. Her first show with WHATIFTHEWORLD — and second solo, Nothwala impahlana (Carrying goods in Zulu) impressed immediately with Asehmale’s unique formal language and its wide use of the green color.
The works convey very clearly personal memories and experience tied to places, an important theme that she shares with several of her fellow artists in South Africa. Like many artists in Africa struggling to obtain quality material for their creations, Asehmale ingeniously repurposed polypropylene bags threads, a very humble material which aptly recalls the land as these bags are used to transport vegetables. In Inyanga Yesixhenxe (7th month in Xhosa, a biblical reference) the recuperated materials are transformed in an extraordinary dreamscape.
