​Contemporary South African Art

​Article credits to :www.afriart.org.za

Date of Birth: 16 March 1960
Place of Birth: KwaMashu outside Durban

Khehla was born in Cato Manor, Durban in 1960.  He attended the Dumani Lower Primary School and later continued his studies through the Intec Correspondence College.  After completing his schooling, he attended the Khanya Theological Institute Union Correspondence College.

At the age of two, Khehla moved with his parents to the township of Kwa-Mashu, where both his parents were leaders in the Holy Banner Apostolic Church of Zion.  He started painting at the age of seven and his mother continually encouraged the young boy saying it was a family talent, his mother’s brother having been Arthur Buthelezi, one of the earlier generation of African artists along with Gerard Bhengu and the Ntuli brothers.

Ngobese’s work is concerned with Zulu cosmology, cultural values and traditions and his meticulous drawings are set in patterned borders which are strongly reminiscent of the neo-ethnic cloth favoured by diviners.  His work depicts his concern with keeping ties to the ancestral-spirits, "I am saying each and every African, no matter his education or if he is Christian, must make umsebenzi (burn imphepho) to ask for luck, they ask from the amaDlozi who are near to God".

In 1994 Ngobese accompanied a fellow artist who was having a nervous breakdown to the Zionist Christian Church at Pietersburg, there his friend was prayed for and healed, but it was to be a watershed experience for Ngobese himself as a church woman helped him to understand his own, "life’s difficulties and illnesses" and he came to know that his own grandfather’s spirit had lead him to the church.  Ngobese explained that he was now accompanied by this grandfather, "I did not know him as a person but from dreams, now I am accompanied by him, but you cannot see him with your eyes.”

Khehla works in watercolours, pastels and pen and ink.  He is a full time artist and has worked on a number of mural paintings in the city of Durban, including the Durban Station (Greyhound Bus Rank), Durban Central Prison, Lawyers for Human Rights, Umlazi Station and I-Care children’s shelter.



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