Dr. Esther Mahlangu

Dr. Esther Mahlangu (b. 1935, South Africa) is known for bright and bold abstract paintings with vivid, geometric patterns rooted in the South African Ndebele nation’s artistic traditional technique for painting murals on buildings, passed between generations of women. She transports the new method to surfaces, usually canvas, in the Ndebele custom: freehand, without a ruler or prior sketches, using a chicken-feather brush, prioritizing straight lines and balance. By continuing this tradition, she honors many women who used patterns as secret codes to share personal prayers, emotional journeys, and collective values.

Mahlangu’s paintings, beadwork, tapestries, and found objects use both the traditional and the contemporary, resulting in modernism that is uniquely African. Her work explores the spaces between the organic and the crafted and between the traditional and the modern: through natural pigment and materials, and bead works, between the Ndebele mural paintings and the abstract geometric compositions rendered in acrylic. Mahlangu’s seven-decade practice highlights the resilience and creativity of Black women artists and it shows how work can draw from tradition and be modern.

In 1991, Mahlangu was also the first woman and African artist to participate in the BMW Art Car program, alongside other artists like Calder, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Stella. Mahlangu’s customized BMW 525i has toured the world extensively, being featured in numerous museum exhibitions including at the Louvre, British Museum and the Shanghai Art Museum, as well as Documenta 9 in 1992. The program continues to this day, with Julie Mehretu being selected for 2024.

Dr. Esther Mahlangu’s works are in museum collections around the world including Centre Pompidou, Paris; South Africa National Gallery, Iziko Museum, Cape Town, SA; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; and Brooklyn Museum, NY. In 2024 her retrospective will be at Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg and Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, and will be traveling to the United States in 2026; Also in 2024, a large mural debuted at the Serpentine Gallery, and her work was included in the 60th Venice Biennale and at the High Museum of Art. In March 2025, Mahlangu’s work will be featured in a solo show at Jenkins Johnson Gallery (San Francisco).