Lwandiso Njara

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Lwandiso Njara grew up in rural Transkei, now part of South Africa.
His rural upbringing was one of traditional African lifestyle and beliefs, but he was sent to a catholic school with colonial missionary thinking. Can you imagine how confusing this must have been for a young boy?

The two worlds couldn't be further apart in their thinking, beliefs and culture and here Lwandiso became a product of both worlds, having to find a way to co-exist in both while still respecting his ancestors culture and his new education.
These two apposing worlds collide in his sculptural pieces.
The two so different, one wouldn't think that there could be an underlying thread, but I believe there is. Both are strongly rooted in tradition and ritual. Lwandiso has learnt to shift between these worlds with relative ease adapting to which ever world he found himself in.
While we all struggle at some point in our lives with discovering our identity, not many of us have such diversity to merge. This was the decision he had to make either to choose one and reject another or to somehow find a way to merge and co-exist and therefore having multiple identities.

After school, he moved to Pretoria to study at the Tshwane University of Technology and completed his B-tech in fine arts.

Awards
2012 First Prize – Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Award
2012 Merit Award – Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) Young Sculptor Award Competition.
2009 Runner Up Prize – Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) Young Sculptor Award Competition.

Cement and cow hair

Catholic altar boy bombarded by choice between Christian doctrines and slaughtering, cement

Details of above work

Catholic Altar boy's toys - 2016
Concrete, steel, patina, wax polish

Images Sourced From:
http://www.art.co.za

They came from across the water by Lwandiso Njara
9th March 2017 Written by Ruzy Rusike
The sculpture series entitled They came from across the water reflects Njara’s the desire to investigate the contribution and influence of missionary education in the rural Transkei during the colonial period. In this area, most black indigenous people believed in traditional African spiritual life and the slaughtering and separating of animal flesh from the bone to honour their ancestors. Visually imitating on the bow and stern of a ship, this sculpture series simulate European missionaries arriving in Africa. These sculptures investigate the interaction and contradiction between the Catholic religion brought to Africa by white missionaries and African spiritual life and ancestral rituals. Furthermore, Njara comments on the Western colonisation of Africa and questions the effect of the arguable contributions missionaries and colonialist alike made to the black indigenous people in Transkei. He deconstructs iconic religious and spiritual imagery and then masterfully reconstructs them to create a new iconic visual.