Lloyd Maluleke
Limpopo-born, Johannesburg-based professional printer and artist’s personal practice which finds him
contending with the topic of absent parentage from an unexpected perspective which truly entices. This is
because Maluleke’s practice is one which interrogates the topic from a surprisingly unexpected, whimsical
and positive standpoint, as the cast of characters who populate his prints do so, not from a stance of
victimhood, but rather does so from an angle which is vastly lighter in its tone. Vital to understanding the
perspective which this artist draws from, one needs to unpack his upbringing.
Being one of many South African children to grow up with limited access to a father, due to the call of the
big city and a need to provide. Maluleke believes that his no bitter understanding of the situation is based
entirely on how his mother explained this situation to him as a child. It’s an understanding which allowed
him to see the importance of the community one finds themselves in as everyone plays a role in shaping
who you might one day become. This idea is conveyed to us through images of a child often wearing a
brightly coloured hardhat or carrying a shovel. These depictions should not be misinterpreted to mean
that these children are child labourers, but rather be viewed from the viewpoint of a child who has heard
tales of his father who has gone off to the big city to make a better life for his family. In this light these
works are meant to be read from the whimsical perspective of a child who hero worships the idea of what
his father represents. This is why Maluleke’s presentation of children presents such a visual contrast
between the vividly saturated yellows of the hardhats and the near monochromatic approach used on the
figure and background.
Maluleke does this to indicate the larger than life idea which a child could hold of an absent parent, this
idealized perspective is one bound by the imagination of the child. This simultaneously becomes an
indication of the importance a mother or guardian has in molding the understandings of a child’s
understanding of these scenarios. Contextualized in a negative light and the child becomes a petrel dish
for hatred and despair to grow. However, fed with positivity and a much more favorable outcome can be
nurtured. In juxtaposition to the whimsical approach used in his depictions of children, Lloyd Maluleke
uses these same elements of hardhats and hovels to shift the perspective to one seeped more in reality
when depicting the women he prints. In this regard these women are representations of the women who
are left at home and whom are then left to carry the daily burdens of providing and sustaining their
families. Where these elements of the hardhat and shovel once represented an idealized perspective of
strength, they now take on a much more literal sentimentality of that strength.
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