Abstract painter Thembeka Heidi Sincuba manifesting the spiritual realm on canvas

The artist is in a group exhibition titled THE NEW VANGUARD a moving perspective, April 20-June 2, 2024, Berman Contemporary 223, Jan Smuts Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg.

Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

Abstract painter and performance artist Thembeka Heidi Sincuba was once denied entry into the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, where they were scheduled to perform an art piece about homelessness. This is as security guards mistook them for someone actually either homeless or mentally unstable.

Not even their spirited protest could dissuade the guards from arresting them, taking them to the police station as a trespasser. They ended up being sent to hospital to be interviewed by a doctor to ascertain their mental state.

“What happened is that as part of my performance piece, I had slept in the streets of Cape Town with the homeless the previous preceding night. I was tracing the life that i once lived on the very same streets of Cape Town as a student. Straight from the streets I took my performance to the art fair, looking dirty and all. The security guards must have thought that I was a mad person.

Even the doctor could at first not believe my story that I was in performance, and was scheduled to perform at the art fair. She asked me whether I had a history of mental illness, which I admitted to. But I explained that, this time, it was not it. I was sound and proper mentally. It was after I convinced her to Google me, after which she saw that indeed

I was an artist and scheduled to perform at the fair. I was then escorted back into the art fair, and the very same security guards who had refused me entry were the ones who escorted me to the performing area. I was a really public spectacle,” explained the artist in an interview with CITYLIFE/ARTS this week.

The interview was held at Berman Contemporary at 223 Jun Smuts Avenue, Rosebank, where Sincuba is one of the artists participating in a group exhibition titled The New Vanguard: A Moving Perspective, running from June 20 to with artists Andrea Moses, Joy Mwhali, Kay Inga Lokwe, Khumo Rasebitse, Nomfundo Mohlala, Thembeka Heidi Sincuba, and Zita Oranje participating.

“After THE NEW VANGUARD exhibitions: LABYRINTHINE in 2020 and DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE in 2021, Berman Contemporary is very happy to announce the 3rd edition of our emerging and early career artists programme. Supporting a new generation of artists with professional help in promoting their work, better establishing their careers, and expanding their visibility, we are pleased to present 7 artists in the upcoming group exhibition,” says the gallery about this exhibition well curated by Else Van Mourik.

Sincuba’s piece, which is partly figurative ad partly abstract, titled, Kwa-Machi, attracted a lot of interest from those that attended the opening of this exhibition, featuring young visual minds whose work and practices stretch the boundaries of what art can do or cannot do in stimulating public curiosity and stretching people’s imagination about the role of art in society.

Kwa-Machi is a delicate journey into the realm of spirituality, allowing the viewer into the sacred space of the artist’s imagination in decoding the role and message of their ancestors in their life. Her single work in this exhibition shows the figures of two women, who seem to be deeply in a state of spiritual contemplation, against a back ground of abstract patterns that seem to complicate the nature of the spiritual world, particularly its sacredness.

“I feel honoured and hippy to be included in this exhibition, among really talented artists who are very much younger than me, and whose art practice is only starting now, whereas mine is far much ahead in terms of what I have done so far,” Sincuba said. They are talking about being included with the young participating women artists most of whom are current Bachelor of Technology in visual art students at Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria.

And indeed compared to fellow participants, they have had far much more international exposure as as both a student and practising artist, exhibiting in prestigious museums and galleries in The Netherlands, the UK and elsewhere overseas.

But Sincuba’s journey has not been easy Their art education started at Michaelis at the University of Cape Town in 2005.

“I found myself in a class where we were only six black students, the rest being white. And among the six of us black students, I was the poorest. I faced so many challenges, ending up sleeping in the streets. Parks were my home for sometime while I was studying there. I ended up having a meltdown as I could not hold my life together anymore,” they explained.

Their untenable circumstances of struggle, both spiritually and in terms of not meeting their material needs forced them to reconnect with their network of mainly people they had known as they grew up in a mission environment, a community then spread around the world including in Germany and The Netherlands.

Thembeka Heidi Sincuba (b.1987) was born in a rural KwaZulu-Natal into a German Christian Mission called Kwasizabantu. It is while growing up in this environment that they got to meet a network of people that as it were, came to their rescue, and eventually extricated them from their circumstances of depression while at Michaelis School of Fine Art.

“One of them arranged for me to go and complete my studies at Artez Academy of Art, The Netherlands), finishing my undergraduate degree in fine art there, graduating in 2010, after which I proceeded to study at Goldsmith University in London,” they narrated their tough journey in art education. Sincuba graduated with a Master of Fine Art degree (MAFA).

Sincuba has since had several exhibitions overseas where their art and art practice is embraced by collectors and museums alike including having a solo exhibition at Galerie 23 in 2023. Their work also caught the eye of respected curator Fons Geerlings who gave Sincuba a solo museum exhibition. In 2021 Sincuba was Artist in Residence at Nordic Arts Association in Stockholm where they collaborated with renowned South African painter Lefifi Tladi, exploring Afro Abstraction and its connection to African spirituality.

Sincuba currently serves as editorial producer at Bubblegum Club in Johannesburg, works closely with the Art Bank, and is a former head of painting at Rhodes University (2017-2020). Sincuba also plays an active role in civil society organisations in the country.

“Sometimes, I wonder why is it that I seem to get opportunities to exhibit my work overseas, and yet the same thing does not happen to me back home,” they lamented the general lack of opportunities for talent locally.

Now deeply embedding their art practice into their spirituality, that influence came from well known abstract artists Wasily Kandisky (Russia) and Hilma af Klint (Sweden) early in their practice.

“It was only after undergoing initiation, answering the call of the ancestors in 2020, that I understood why in the first place I was attracted to abstract spiritual art as a practice. The process of ukutwasa, which I did in the area of my ancestors at the border of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, Kwa-Machi, was not an easy thing. It complicated my life at first as it felt like dying. I was humbled and stripped of the ego,” Sincuba looked back.

But with that experience, there was also rebirth that reflects itself in a more reflective and deeply spiritual art practice that comes from a higher force. That rebirth, perceptive art practice, is well captured in the piece on exhibit at Berman Contemporary aptly titled Kwa-Machi.

“After the initiation process, my practice became more grounded, and when I paint, I no longer need to think a lot about what I am doing as the process is guided by not me, but a higher force of my ancestors. I have now understood why I was in the first place, attracted to abstract art.

“The two figures in my work on exhibit are those of fellow initiates Mbuthuma and Blosse, who I got close to during the process of ukutwasa. In future I would like to invite them to my exhibitions.”

Sincuba is indeed an artist to watch out for as their practice has finally found a stable stand on the local contemporary art scene as their ancestors guide them in creating powerful narratives coming from a sacred, deeply personal space that connects with viewers worldwide.