Malebona Maphutse is a South African artist, born in Sharpeville, in the Vaal Triangle, and based in Johannesburg. She completed her BA in Fine Art at the University of Witwatersrand in 2017, and works in a variety of media: from sculptural installations, video and works on canvas, to Linocut and digital prints. Throughout her body of work, Maphutse is concerned with narrating history, investigating how bodies transcend existence and encounter space as a means to understand the politics of space. Her digital collages and installations appropriate visuals and language from street flyers, bitingly exploring the historical debt resulting from systematic oppression. She is the co-founder of the now disbanded collective Title in Transgression and the experiment of the distribution of printed material, Lephephe Print Gatherings. Her work has been shown at a number of exhibitions, spaces and happenings.
Maphutse’s work presents an investigation of the dual belief system in Johannesburg and South Africa through an imagined superhero universe called Mamoloyi Healing Ministries: Tsipa Tsipa Hair Salon. On the one hand, there is the concept of witchcraft (Boloi/Boloyi), which stems from the demonisation of traditional beliefs and customs due to a taboo around what African spiritual and traditional practices represent. On the other, there is a preference for a Western-translated, transferred Christianity, and this creates a binary between the two in a South African context. Maphutse’s work draws from the premise of religious syncretism to realise the links, crossovers, and realistic manifestations as reenactments of both belief systems. Both have a space in which the supernatural is present; both have the power to achieve the impossible for those who believe and desperately need spiritual guidance, healing, and possibilities for a better future.
Maphutse’s inspiration is fueled by the infinite, and probable, options that can be drawn from how people move in these spaces, depending on the environment and set variables. Through this form of investigation, she has explored a variety of questions and situations that surround how bodies move and occupy spaces. The focus lies on the ritual and spiritual engagements that take place in different spaces, informing social, economic, religious, and relational politics in order to create time-landscapes. By embodying the fictional character of Mamaloyi (from Mamoloyi Healing Ministries), Maphutse has begun to intertwine these politics to emphasise and rethink ways in which these bodies exist within, but are not limited to, a South African context.