IN CONVERSATION WITH ATHI-PATRA RUGA
Athi-Patra Ruga is an artist whose work exists in the contiguity of being tethered to terra firma yet nourished by alternative realities. His far-from-myopic introspections into South Africa’s traumas make use of mythology as a response to parody and critique echoes of colonisation — a constructed utopia to engage with history and the multiple narratives that accompany it. His latest exhibition, Amadoda on the Verge…[1835-2025], delves into these histories and how they affect our collective being in the present. With the move back to his native Eastern Cape, Ruga turned his attention to exploring the history of the image of Black masculinities and how colonial exchange and resistance have affected how we view and invent ourselves.
The Manor: Your work often challenges traditional narratives. How does Amadoda on the Verge…[1835-2025] continue with that motif?
Athi-Patra Ruga: Working across media, I have realised that the story dictates the medium. In this story, world oil on canvas and linen became the vehicle. This is because the historical depiction of the Black masculine was first thrust into the world through oil painting depictions of “the noble savage” evolving into “the loyal Fingo” and then into “terrorist.” I wanted to grab that traditional “unreliable narrative” and centralise my collective experience by my hand. Another method was to go into how the figures are placed as an answer to the historical depictions. The closeups on the visage come with the “psychological portrait” as Hitchcock and Eisenstein do in cinema, it goes beyond the sitter being stripped of names to fit into a colonial narrative. The composition zooms out to show the sartorial “self-invention” of the sitter as the clothes communicate much about their origins and this confluence and conflict of cultures in The Frontier. Zooming out further reveals the landscape but with careful attention to not repeat what colonial painters did, which was to let the colonised land swallow the native figure to the extent of no recognition.
TM: You describe your exhibition as a “part-speculative, part-historical frontier.” Can you elaborate on this juxtaposition?
AR: The decay and ruin of the Black historical memorials and military forts in the Eastern Cape have drawn my attention to a lapse in our collective memory. It has awakened my need to revisit the geography of the South African colonial frontier and explore the military forts as a microcosm of frontier encounters. The Eastern Cape, which was a fiercely contested battleground, indicates a significant collective loss and has prompted me to offer up an imaginative counter-narrative to eulogise what has been overlooked or lost in the rainbow nation exercise.
TM: How does myth-making play a role in exploring themes of Black masculinity and the effects of colonial history on contemporary society?
AR: Where there are voids in memory, I make it a point to make up a story to fill it in with made-up characters, story worlds, well-researched narratives, and what is made available by popular image-making.
TM: The exhibition explores a mix of historical events, from the Crimean War to the prophecies of Ntsikana and Mangconde, to the publication of Frankenstein. What is the golden thread that links all of these events together?
AR: In the solitude of the painted avatars of The Frontier, you feel that they are on the verge of something, and this is also represented by rivers, barbed wire, and cliffs. However, the uneasiness brings about the Gothic in this world and work. The historic Eastern Cape Frontier was a meeting of global ideas, and mixed with the Wars of Dispossession, a millenarianism became embodied by its occupants. I feel there are still traces of those old prophets like Makana and Ntsikana who probably witnessed Halley’s Comet in 1835, to Nongqause, to contemporary Mangconde. I feel that their visionary imaginings enable much of my society to dream up new worlds and importantly to self-invent, unlike Frankenstein (published in 1835). I draw from the neo-Gothic sensibility prevalent in the architecture and literature of the frontier period and the sombre atmosphere of the contemporary Eastern Cape.
TM: One of the key pieces in the exhibition is Dyani Mfengu on the Kei River [1835]. Can you discuss the significance of this work in relation to the exhibition as a whole?
AR: The gothic effects of settler occupation and religious domination have inspired me to focus on the continued effects of the disembodiment on the Black male. Using costume and craftsmanship, I want to create a remedy as an alternative to a history of loss and disassociation. In the painting Dyani Mfengu on the Kei River [1835], I have painted a young man who is part of the Mfengu Levy. In 1835, amaMfengu (abaMbo), a group of 17,000 black pioneers crossed the Nciba (Kei) River and allied with the British against the Xhosa and swore allegiance to the British Crown. They were instrumental in winning several decisive victories.
The term impambano means a schism between the body, mind, and spirit and this mpambano, the clash of the British, Boer, and Xhosa, is referenced in the clothes salvaged from the battlefield. I have suggested a split between the known and unknown. The assailant is deliberately split from the frame as I reconcile my personal history.
TM: How does the use of traditional materials like oil paint and stained glass contribute to your narrative and differ from their historical use by European painters?
AR: I seek virtuosity in multiple disciplines. Here, the use of oil paint on canvas is a conceptual choice. It positions my work within the long tradition of history painting. It is in dialogue with the chosen medium of colonial reportage from the frontiers by influential 18th-century painters such as Frederick I’Ons and Thomas Baines. Contemporary scholars acknowledge the often biased nature of these depictions, which were both reportage and propaganda used to justify European expansion into “empty land” as well as to depict native populations as savages to justify the
civilising Christian mission and genocide.
TM: Lastly, what do you hope viewers will take away from Amadoda on the Verge…[1835-2025], and how do you envision this exhibition contributing to ongoing conversations about history, identity, and post-colonialism?
AR: What the audience takes away IS the art. Their relation to the material hopefully would inspire them to take a more soulful look at our collective histories and all its paradoxes. Luxuriate in paradox.
