Themba Khumalo | Artist

Themba Khumalo – Untitled, 2023

Themba Khumalo’s work looks to interpret life situations through the lens of traditional African religions and spirituality. Exploring traditional beliefs and practices that include spirituality as a concept, beliefs in ancestors, and a higher power.
In Zulu tradition, religion has numerous Gods or general classes of natural phenomena. Unkulunkulu is the highest creator of everything. The idea of God is of a non -physical entity that is combined with the sky which is Umvelinqangi (meaning the one who was in the beginning).
It is through this connection to Ukulunkulu no Mvelinqangi that he observes how the people comment and respond to life challenges such as poverty, economics, politics, corruption, and the recent rise of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also uses this connection as a way to explore how the believers use the land as a space of refugee, of faith and the expressing thereof, and praying to Umvelinqanga; and how loss and hope are often found in transit between spaces.