I come from a region that has been deeply marked by conflict. Much of this caused due to the richness of its natural resources. But in truth, its true wealth is our people - Papytsho Mafolo

The Whispering of the Stars  explores traditional African mythology and belief, that views the sky, the moon, and the stars as part of the Earth. In African mythology it is believed that celestial phenomena are natural signs united with the Earth in harmonious synchronicity.

This new body of work, created in 2021, continues to explore the realities of an African culture fragmented by foreign hegemony via figures half human and half animal dancing across his canvases.

These figures work to shift and mirror life, in constant dialogue with the sacred. Each passing moment becomes a call to listen to the whispers of the invisible lips of the spiritual world. What emerges is a view of nature as something imbued with a rich spiritual significance.

Born Congolese and now based in Belgium, Papytsho has spent a considerable amount of time living and working in Europe. The exhibition aims to question European-made identities and their influence on and relevance to those who are indigenous to Africa.

Seeing everything as relationally in conversation, Mafolo evokes this by collaging gold leaf, printed images, acrylic but also oil paint and unfinished lines on a canvas. These unfinished lines, according to Mafolo, evoke an infinite world but are also a self-reminder that artistically, he has not arrived yet.

Symbolically this represents how European identities were imposed on Africans by the colonisers to the detriment of the indigenous identities. African philosophy emphasizes this as it is based upon the belief that life is a vital unity and that the human being is only a point on the cosmic circle of life. The distinguishing features of this philosophy are its welfarism, altruism, universalism, and its utilitarian outlook.

Central to this is the near-universal lesson that ‘to be human is to affirm one’s humanity by affirming the humanity of others. Thus, individualism is what threatens humanity and the lines left unfinished in Mafolo’s work leave room for another, his spiritual self or you to finish.

This cultural mix, inherited by our time, must be seen as an opportunity towards perfection and not as an element of destruction of our values, because in this meeting of give and take everyone makes their contribution.

Ayoko and Papytsho will be filmining their discussion around issues of relevance to his career, life and practice on 11th Februrary in Belgium. This conversatiion will be uploaded on our social media platfroms on the 21st February. 

Please note if you have any question to sumit to any of the panlist please sumbit this before the 9th February  by 18h00 GMT+2 to curator@themelrosegallery.com

For more information contact: curator@themelrosegallery.com

I use gold leaf in my paintings to evoke the special being to gifts that we all possess. But also to celebrate when the black man is at one with his culture and his spirituality. I believe that we discover our true potential throughout our lives and build ourselves like a puzzle, borrowing here and there from others and our experiences.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o writes, “To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others.” An important part of this cultural identity relies on the past, which in the case of Congo was created as “authentic traditional culture” by the modernist imagination of Belgian colonial rule, a cultural category from which change and modernity itself were scrubbed. - Sarah Van Beurden (Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese Culture)

This idea is of importance when viewing Mafolo’s artworks as they construct and visualize the city through the debris of its people. He uses visual art to depict and personify the city in which he lives and its people through the lens of his own personal history. Thus in his works, he explores the DRC and the changes that it has experienced due to colonialism, the struggle for independence, the stagnation of the Mobutu era, and most recently, the First and Second Congo Wars.

The circulation of objects and faces in Mafolo’s work leads to their appropriation and reinvention with the purpose of creating a more inclusive narrative. Becomes a device tool of which Mafolo draws upon when constructing his image, lines, colours, and shapes functioning in its multiplicity, displacement, and creative instability. Personifying how between black and white, old and new, home and abroad, art and artifact have their binary which by no means is stable nor does it exist in isolation. Thus the canvas upon which Papytsho pulls on this tension allows the subjects in his work to emerge as discursive instead of individual appropriations. The act as the city mirroring the other side embodying the rhythm of another whilst holding their own. Therefore, despite one’s story, a story does not exist in isolation nor is there a single story.

-Ruzy Rusike

"No dance form is permeant, definitive, or ultimate. Changes occur, but the basic element of dance endures. Dance is for all people. One need only recall that dance needs neither common race nor common language for communication; it has been, and remains, a universal means of communication." -  Kariamu Welsh-Asante

The appropriate language with which to discuss the art of Africa and African Diaspora is a slippery issue that has grown in importance in the post-colonial epoch. In many ways the art world has not kept up with post-colonial realties – including a global economy, global politics, and a growing global awareness , and their impact on the production and perception of Africa and African Diasporic art. - Ogbechie, Sylvester Okwunodu (Exhibiting Africa: Curatorial attitudes and the politics of ...)

There is a lot of difficulty in defining a moment in African art or how art is produced in Africa. As most of the works are sculptures, paintings, ceramics, and land art, they evolve and react to time. Furthermore, terms such as ‘Primitive’, ‘Contemporary’, or ‘Afrofuturism’ are problematic when it comes to narrating this ongoing transformation. This art, African art and the diaspora, communicates consumption, industry, technology, taxation, labour, warfare, finance, insurance, government, bureaucracy, science, religion, and philosophy – all of this together was made possible by the ubiquity of slavery. Thus, we bond these concepts to  concepts that are not our own. Therefore  language is the vessel through which time is expressed which languge would you use to define Mafolo's works?

Should you be interested in any works please let us know and we will be in contact

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