CRITICAL DISCOURSE OF AFRICAN VERNACULAR ROOTED IMAGERIES IN PITIKA NTULI’S SCULPTURES

My paper presents a critical discourse on African vernacular rooted imageries in the contemporary sculptures of Ntuli, the ideas they convey to viewers and how Africanness is indicated in each depiction produced between 2007 and 2016. I read Ntuli’s contemporary sculptures as African vernacular rooted because he appropriates in them cultural imageries from engagement with African contexts. Five images of his sculptures and installations were purposively selected for thematic and visual analysis. I adopt visual hermeneutics theory, formal analysis and cultural history methods for the reading of each work. The narrative reveals that Ntuli’s vernacular imageries reflects black South African men and a woman rooted in past and present socio-political events in South Africa. The thematic interpretations of the imageries reveal ideas on massacre not merely during apartheid but in post-apartheid South Africa, torture of victims detained without trial, anti-racialism and reflection on a historical hero from Zulu culture.