Turiya Magadlela, SA

Turiya Magadlela (b. 1978, Johannesburg, S. Africa, lives and works in Cape Town) works with art making techniques that are traditionally used by women, using sewing and embroidery on various conceptually loaded fabrics, from pantyhose to correctional service uniforms, and creates abstract compositions by cutting, stitching, folding, and stretching these materials across canvas structures.

Her subject matter moves between articulations of personal experiences of woman and motherhood, and narratives from South African history. Magadlela engages in a conversation on the colonization of black bodies and women; her art uses materials capitalist in nature at a time when commoditization is ever more prescient. Turiya Magadlela’s powerful and compelling works of art using materials such as women’s nylon pantyhose stitched together and stretched over canvas create active color theories and convey the artist’s concerns with the fragility of women around the world and their lack of equality. Through her practice, she hopes to bring these issues to the forefront.

“I draw to matters that concern me, such as the way women are treated in my country ofAfrica, with the violent cutting of female circumcision in newborn babies and young girls. I speak to the misfortunes of inequalities in female-based industries as well as matters such as ageism, racialism, and how capitalism without concern for moral values has left many women and children in hell holes all around the world.”

Through her practice, Turiya also brings attention to consumerism and greed that leaves vast amounts of pollution dumped in Africa:

“We have rich European and American individuals whose our land for leisure without consideration of local needs and local struggles and governments who allow this to happen because they lack resources -, for example, we do not manufacture our own clothes and our own food. Meanwhile, China’s produces items in excess that are rejected in the first world and get dumped on our shores.”

Magadlela studied at the University of Johannesburg and Rijksakademie, Amsterdam whereshe graduated in 2003 and was introduced to curator and fellow artist Senga Nengudi, whogreatly influenced the work Magadlela has been creating ever since. She has been based outof South Africa ever since, using found and everyday objects, sews and embroiders nylonpantyhose, correctional service uniforms, prison sheets, and other conceptually loaded fabricsto address issues that shape a gendered and racialized society, employing art-makingtechniques traditionally associated with femininity and craft.Her body of work has in return inspired and influenced other artists in the Western World.