Ayanda Mabulu

Ayanda Mabulu is an artist who refuses neutrality. His work does not simply depict, it challenges, unsettles, and demands response. Through a practice rooted in confronting power, politics, and historical memory, Mabulu has established a visual language that is as provocative as it is deliberate, positioning him as one of the most arresting voices in contemporary South African art.

Lot 38: Ayanda Mabulu, They shot us like savage beasts, 2015

Mabulu’s works are characterised by their explicit figuration, charged political commentary, and often controversial subject matter. Figures are rendered with a theatrical immediacy, staged within complex compositions that collapse past and present, implicating both historical figures and contemporary leaders in narratives of critique and accountability. It is this bold, unapologetic approach that has cemented his visibility within both local and international discourse.

LEFT: Lot 12: Ayanda Mabulu, Village scene

MIDDLE: Lot 13: Ayanda Mabulu, Salem Promise, 2005

RIGHT: Lot 14: Ayanda Mabulu, When We Had Food and Things to Sell, 2012

The three early works (Lots 12, 13 and 14) currently offered on our P5’26 Online Auction present a notably different, and far less widely encountered, dimension of Mabulu’s practice. Stylistically, these works are quieter and more exploratory, revealing an artist still in the formative stage of his visual language. Rather than staging grand allegories of political critique, these early compositions suggest a closer, more introspective engagement with place and memory. There is a sensitivity to environment and a measured handling of paint that foregrounds observation over provocation.

Lot 12: Ayanda Mabulu, Village scene

Yet, even within this relative subtlety, key elements of Mabulu’s later practice are already discernible. Although the early works appear less symbolically dense, they are not devoid of metaphor. His interest in the human figure as a site of tension and expression remains central. Elements of gesture, spatial relation, and figural interaction already hint at a symbolic framework in formation. These are not yet codified, but they suggest an artist experimenting with how meaning can be layered within an image. Even within quieter scenes, one senses an artist attuned to the complexities of identity, power and social reality.

Lot 14: Ayanda Mabulu, When We Had Food and Things to Sell, 2012

Importantly, these works are further enriched by their deeply personal provenance. Gifted by the artist in his early years to the current owner, who knew Mabulu personally, they speak not only to a formative moment in his practice, but also to the relationships that sustained it. Lot 14, When we had food and things to sell, is particularly intimate in this regard, featuring members of the owner’s family alongside a split portrait of the artist himself. Similarly, Lot 13, Salem Promise, bears a personal dedication on the reverse that reads as a gesture of gratitude, acknowledging the support and encouragement that enabled Mabulu to pursue and realise his artistic ambitions.

Lots 12, 13 and 14 invite a reconsideration of Mabulu not only as a provocateur but invite a more nuanced reading of his practice. For collectors and viewers alike, they present a rare opportunity to engage with Mabulu’s practice at its point of origin, where observation begins to give way to assertion, and where the seeds of his now unmistakable visual language first take root.

Lot 13: Ayanda Mabulu, Salem Promise, 2005