Zwelethu Mthethwa
Zwelethu Mthethwa is known primarily for his work in the photographic and video media. Though the pastels and paintings he completed early in his career were well recognised, Mthethwa’s major citical attention commenced in the 1980s when he began to photograph the start of informal squatter camps around Cape Town. Though the media of photography and video are still viewed as “new”, Mthethwa’s work is traditional in the formal sense – his compositions are immaculate, his sense of line strong and his use of colour always significant. The integrity and honesty with which Mthethwa tells visual stories and provides his viewers with vividly evocative vignettes of his immediate word has earned him acclaim, both critical and popular, the world over.
Zwelethu Mthethwa was born in Durban in 1960. He holds diplomas from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town and, the deserving recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship, Mthethwa holds a Masters in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Mthethwa’s work has been shown in over 100 exhibitions and can be found in a vast number of public and private collections worldwide.