"To me, Isambulo is an awakening, a revelation of what has always existed within us but may have been forgotten, hidden or misunderstood. It is an invitation to reconnect with our spiritual roots, our ancestors and the knowledge they continue to carry"
The Melrose Gallery presents Isambulo (Revelations), a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary South African artist, musician and sangoma Ndabuko Ntuli. Working across sculpture, assemblage and traditional storytelling, Ntuli brings ancestral inheritance into conversation with contemporary African life, exploring identity, spiritual calling, cultural memory and the knowledge carried between generations.
Ndabuko Ntuli bridges the spiritual and contemporary worlds in Isambulo (Revelations).
The multidisciplinary artist, musician and sangoma draws on ancestral knowledge, memory and reclaimed materials in a deeply personal exhibition.
For Ntuli, Isambulo, meaning "revelations", is both an awakening and an act of remembering.
Central to the exhibition is the idea that time, reflection and experience have the power to transform what we understand. An experience that appears certain in the moment may reveal an entirely different meaning when revisited with distance and new knowledge. What was once ordinary can become significant, while what was once unclear can begin to reveal itself.
Against a contemporary world shaped by economic uncertainty, technological advancement, artificial intelligence and rapidly changing ideas about the future, Isambulo asks audiences to pause and consider not only where society is going, but what knowledge risks being left behind.
Ntuli sees his artistic and spiritual practices as inseparable.
"Being a multidisciplinary artist allows me to express my calling through different mediums, materials, textures and forms. I do not see my spiritual calling and my artistic practice as separate. They are deeply intertwined. My calling provides the spiritual foundation of my work, while art gives me a language through which I can explore, question and translate these experiences into something tangible."
Through materials including clay and reclaimed wood, Ntuli approaches each artwork as a conversation between the visible and invisible, the personal and collective, and the ancestral and present. In transforming humble and discarded materials, he considers how objects, memories and traditions can carry meaning beyond their immediate moment.
Download document below for Isambulo catalogue.
