Khensani Rihlampfu’s  futuristic exhibition assists in erasing from memory pain and anguish of Covid-19

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

If you visited ABSA Gallery this month and I recommend that you do, the first thing that will hit you are sculptures made of wool and hood. Some are installed on the floor, and one is hanging by a thread. These are sculptural figures of human beings.

Each one of them is involved in some form of activity.  However there is one sculptural figure that takes the centre of the exhibition hall, which would be directly facing you as you enter the gallery.  This one has a special place in the heart of the artist, and you will soon know why. This one is titled Amazing Conversation. The figure’s right hand is raised in front of her eyes.

She is in conversation with another person who is invisible. But before I get ahead of myself, you will also be struck by beautiful linocuts on the walls on your right. These prints stand out for two reasons: one they are clearly beautiful visually, demanding that you collect them and hang them in your home, and two, because the three prints are the only art works that are prints, while the rest are sculptural figures.

They are so beautiful that they will catch your eye for sometime, before you walk around the exhibition hall as you immerse your mind, eyes and heart into, a solo exhibition by Sculptor Khensani Rihlampfu, the ABASA L’Atelier 2019 Ambassador. By now, on the basis of his triumph in this prestigious competition, open to artists between the ages of 18 and 35, he should have already been exhibited. But that had to wait.

The outbreak of Cobvid-19 in 2020, delayed this exhibition. Not only did Rihlampfu, had his dreams of exhibiting his works shattered as a result.  He experienced more setbacks in his career, just like many artists, and certainly, other professionals as the pandemic reconfigured life socially and economically throughout the world as it raged.

But because Rihlampfu is an artist, he responded to the existential challenge in a particularly specific way. In fact this exhibition is a representation of his response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on life in general. This is a visual representation of the artist’s own response to the outbreak. He has done it in the same way that a writer, for example, would have done it in text.

So this exhibition in a way, is a personal journey of one human being’s response to the fears and vulnerabilities that many of us experienced andas we faced a crisis humanity had not faced for a century.

But through this exhibition, Rihlampfu has not created works that make him a victim of the pandemic, even though he suffered personally, as you can imagine. He of course like many other artists could not make a living during the lockdowns that were effected.

Through this exhibition, however, Rihlampfu creates a visual tapestry of hope in the post pandemic. He uses a combination of these beautiful sculptural figures as well as the prints to paint a beautiful picture of post Covid-19 in which opportunities for human advancement present themselves. Therefore, and I am glad that it does, viewing these works, will not make you feel like you were a victim of the pandemic. But look forward to a fulfilling life post Covid-19.

“After winning the award in 2019, Khensani was ready to travel to France with two other artists for a residency in 2020. In fact we held a celebratory dinner for him the day before his departure. But then suddenly I had to make one of the most difficult decisions in my life, by telling him that he could not travel anymore. The pandemic was on its way,” said Dr Paul Bayliss Art specialist and Curator of ABSA Gallery.

“In fact that morning when I was supposed to travel to France that was going to be my first ever trip overseas. My bags were packed. I was ready to fly out of the country. But then Covid-19 happened,” he told CITYLIFE/ARTS in an interview.

“But what Khensani then did was smart. He turned a negative into a positive by creating these works that trace his personal journey during the pandemic,” Bayliss told CITYLIFE/ARTS.

In this exhibition, you will meet different characters, such as the figure Amazing Conversation, which is a representation of the artist’s memory of his regular conversations with his aunt, a familial connection which was cut off during the period of lockdown due to the imposed isolation  by government as it tried to control and manage the outbreak. You will also meet another character, the one dangling on a rope, titled Playground.

“During the time of isolation, I would go to a park in Johannesburg, in my neighbourhood, alone and listen to the birds as well as play alone while in deep thinking,” says Rihlampfu.

And so although this exhibition is about the pandemic, it carries a hopeful, even futuristic tone post pandemic, instead of a sentimental sad tone about what happened, and why it happened.

It is therefore a pleasing exhibition to view, but also a portal for many of us to banish the memory of the pain and the anguish of what happened to us and our families and close friends during that time of horror and fear.

Already this exhibition seems to be connecting well with the hearts and the emotions of several people that have been through the ABSA Gallery’s doors so far. All the three prints that are on display, have been snatched. They carried green stickers, the same day that the exhibition opened. But luckily the beauty of prints is that they come in limited editions, and therefore, you still stands a chance of laying your hands on these beautiful linocuts.