Description
Mixed media
90 x 70 cm
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Umoya
R42,000 (Excl. VAT)
R48,300 (Incl. VAT)
Artist:Mbuso Hlongwa
Mixed media
90 x 70 cm
Within South Africa we courier your artwork to your door - the shipping cost will show at the checkout. When shipping art internationally, two primary options are commonly considered: crated and rolled. Crating involves securely packaging the artwork in a custom-built crate, providing maximum protection against physical damage but often resulting in higher shipping costs due to size and weight. We will be in touch regarding the best options for you. Virtual hanging of art is an innovative service we offer that allows art enthusiasts and collectors to visualize how artworks will appear in their desired spaces before making a purchase. We digitally place the selected artworks on your walls, in the correct scale to achieve the desired aesthetic. This service not only helps in making informed decisions but also enhances the overall art-buying experience, providing a realistic preview of the final result and ensuring that the chosen artworks harmonize with the surrounding decor. Please contact us to make use of this service!
Shipping Info
On the other hand, rolling art involves taking stretched paintings off the frame, carefully wrapping the artwork and placing it in a protective tube. This method is more cost-effective and suitable for flexible pieces.
Choosing between crating and rolling depends on the specific artwork's size, fragility, and budget, as well as the destination's shipping requirements and regulations.
Virtual Hanging
Mbuso Hlongwa
Mbuso Hlongwa
South African artist Quincy Mbuso Hlongwa creates oil portraits that explore the meeting point between traditional Zulu identity and contemporary visual culture. His work merges heritage with the aesthetics of modern life, using fabric, pattern, and an iconic deep blue skin tone to construct symbolic figures. Drawing from photographs of himself and others, Hlongwa composes portraits that are both personal and collective, inviting viewers into a conversation about identity, belonging, and representation.
In works such as Inhlonipho, Umoya, and Amagugu, Hlongwa distills the face into simplified shapes, preserving only the eyes as the focal point. By removing personal likeness, he transforms the figure into a universal presence, someone to connect to rather than recognize. The eyes remain as a vessel of emotion, while the absence of other features opens space for individual interpretation, memory, and projection. This approach shifts the portrait away from traditional portraiture and towards introspective symbolism.
Hlongwa’s figures are styled in combinations of everyday clothing, leopard print, shield-like motifs, and playful visual references drawn from contemporary culture. Cartoon graphics and heritage patterns coexist, demonstrating how modern identity is constructed through layering, of influence, ancestry, and self-expression. His use of textiles, along with meticulous painted detail, speaks to a deep engagement with craft, storytelling, and the cultural significance embedded within fabric.
Through calm, front-facing compositions, Hlongwa highlights clothing and styling as extensions of lived identity, revealing the subtle ways we communicate who we are. His portraits do not simply depict the individual; they reflect the shared spaces where history, culture, and imagination meet. By blending the symbolic and the contemporary, Hlongwa’s work affirms identity not as something fixed, but as something continually remixed, worn, and redefined.
