Play Balls

Best known for his dreamlike and nightmarish compositions, Blessing Ngobeni stylistically evokes Dada, Surrealism and Expressionism, fusing them together to make a distinct hybrid language. Often overtly political, his oeuvre conveys a deep disillusionment with South Africa’s post-apartheid regime and its endemic corruption after the presidency of Nelson Mandela. Often featuring collage elements, he salvages cuttings from art magazines featuring other artworks, painting over them and incorporating them into his own pictures. ‘I privately collaborate with other artists,’ he explains; ‘this is how I honour and respect them’. Blessing Ngobeni was born in the small town of Tzaneen, located in the largely rural Limpopo province of South Africa. He moved to Johannesburg at a very young age, where he experienced many hardships, from living on the streets, to serving time in prison. During his incarceration he became involved in the Tsoga (Wake Up) Arts Project, which invited prisoners to paint portraits of fellow inmates and postcards they could send home. Released after six years, painting offered continuing salvation for Ngobeni outside of prison.
Ngobeni confronts his own experiences and challenges them in the often nightmarishly absurd and violent scenes of his paintings. These scenes, though brutal and honest, are also a display of the artist’s visual sensitivities to line, image and the power of colour.
As Ngobeni’s work began to gain critical attention, he was awarded the prestigious Reinhold Cassirer Award in 2012. More recently he was the recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art in 2020. He currently lives and works in Johannesburg.