Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives -Gladys Mgudlandlu

27 After seeing the landscape of the Eastern Cape, where Mgudlandlu spent the first 27 years of her life, one can identify the white-blueish plumes in her landscapes as buddleia in bloom; the torches of flaming colour, either as aloe ferox or aloe speciosa ; and the big orange cones borne on drooping fronds, as the Eastern Cape’s giant cycad. Mgudlandlu also carries memories of the Amatolas, a mountain range in the Eastern Cape that reminded her of ‘running cattle’. Of these mountains, the missionary Henry Dugmore, who arrived with the 1820 settlers, wrote: ‘They are sufficiently lofty to be covered with snow most of the winter months. Their sides are clothed with noble forests … Streams without number … wind their way through rich fertile valleys … The perpetual verdure, rich flora, the wildly picturesque views … give an untiring interest to … this region of beauty and grandeur.’ Dugmore’s description lives on in Mgudlandlu’s paintings of this region. Elza Miles (2002) Nomfanekiso Who Paints at Night: The Art of Gladys Mgudlandlu , Cape Town: Fernwood Press, pages 41 and 44.