SIMON MOSHAPO JNR | BOFU ALI SUMBEDZI LINWE NDILA 

Exhibition Statement

BOFU ALI SUMBEDZI LINWE NDILA (A blind person cannot show another blind person the way) 

This latest collection of works from Moshapo Jnr centres around parables and imagery within Vhavenda traditions and oral storytelling. The hand-carved wooden sculptures depict various animal and human figures, accented in areas of bright colour. Moshapo Jnr’s selective colour palette, coupled with this particular style of figuration within his carvings, seeks to convey particular imagined spaces, in which animals juxtapose groupings of people with immediate connotations in Vhavenda tradition. 

Moshapo Jnr’s practice embodies his laboured, experiential approach to art-making. Each sculpture is composed based on his understanding of the raw woods, and how he imagines their stories being made visible within the physical world. 

Bofu Ali Sumbedzi Linwe Ndila is Simon Moshapo Jnr’s third solo exhibition with Kalashnikovv Gallery, and his first showing in Cape Town.