Manyaku Mashilo

Manyaku Mashilo (1991) is a South African multidimensional artist based in Cape Town. Quotes Listening, for me, is a state of remembering I begin to understand painting as a way of responding to ancestral presence rather than illustrating a fixed narrative. Living far from home has made me more aware of how easily spiritual and cultural knowledge can be interrupted or erased, especially within an increasingly Eurocentric world Painting becomes a way of honouring what came before me, and of keeping those memories, histories, and spiritual inheritances alive in the present. Through painting, I am not trying to reconstruct a specific moment, but to honour the presence that remains, the emotional and spiritual resonance that continues to live on. Balancing the material and the immaterial begins with trust in the physical process of painting It is within this space of surrender that listening happens, where the physical act of painting becomes a way of accessing something beyond what is immediately visible. For me, listening between worlds means accepting that memory, spirit, and presence do not always appear in fixed or defined forms Manyaku Mashilo: Here I Saw My Ancestors First 5 June 2026 While making my work I am surrounded by music, scents, images and colours that ground and remind me of where I am from Life in the village is navigated and understood through storytelling, spirituality and mythology I am creating a space for these wisdoms, knowledge systems and rituals to persist, to be told and retold, to be shared. The elements are always working with me, guiding my intuition and leading me to new understandings of the world and self. I watched my mothers use their hands all the time; to take care of us, to make things for us, to tend to the land. Their language of love and care was made real through the work of their hands When thinking about feminine knowledge, the hands are a recurring and significant motif. Hands speak to touch, nourishment, intention, labour and connection. Colour and materiality in my culture are potent signifiers I think there is something primal, dynamic and alive in the colour red Growing up, I was always fascinated with how intentions, wishes, beliefs can be represented and energetically held by objects My practice explores ways of preserving and materialising ancestral knowledge systems, rituals, symbologies that I believe are in danger of being lost The world feels as if it is in a state of crisis and wounding n.d The earth and the world is made up of textures. I think textures hold a lot of memory. You could brush your hand against something and that could trigger a memory My practice is not just about honoring my mothers, but it's trying to relive that feeling that I had when I grew up, when I was with my mothers, exploring their spiritual healing, their motherhood, all the things they taught me Manyaku Mashilo: in conversation with Folasade Ologundudu 29 April 2026 I’m most liberated when I’m able to change myself, whatever I need to Manyaku Mashilo: Intuition is the Place 29 May 2024 Quotes about her Mashilo’s work reminds me to acknowledge the power of belief, of faith, and the progression and flux that necessitates it and moves us toward our future. My journey to my ancestors was a short one when I began looking for them because they were already waiting for me. That irreducible feeling I’m trying to articulate is present with me as I move between Mashilo’s paintings and the vast world that this body of work opens up to me I am moved, satiated and returned to myself as I receive Mashilo’s offering, feeling deeply grateful Manyaku Mashilo’s ‘An Order of Being’ by Southern Guild 23 November 2024 Mashilo leans into dreams and creates kinds of re-memories that have origin in something real and something lived, but are rendered on the canvas as augmented forms or a modality of rhythm and movement For her, the capacity for movement and change allows for a way forward in a world made ambiguous and difficult by the hands of colonialism and all other forms of policing an un-softening of the world. Manyaku Mashilo: Intuition is the Place by Magazine C& 29 May 2024 Category:1991 births Category:Living people