Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives -Gladys Mgudlandlu

6 Maggie Laubser Flaminke by Kleinmond oil on canvas laid down on board 48 by 52 cm private collection Agency is reflected in Mgudlandlu’s biography and the fact that she is a black South African women artist whose history is rooted in the societal struggle of patriarchy and gender and racial exclusions. One can observe her staking claim to these notions in the following statement: I think I can claim to be the first African woman in the country to hold an exhibition. As far as I know I am the only African woman who has taken up painting seriously. It has become my first love and there is nothing else I want to do. Cape Times , 15 August 1962 This self-proclaiming statement speaks about the level of agency Mgudlandlu used to position and assert herself. Moreover, this claim also calls upon her gender, race and geographical location in her attempt to make herself visible. It is in such self-conscious representations that one is able to understand that the ways in which she presented herself in the public domain were in essence ‘self-determined’. This further develops and posits the ‘self’ articulation for which black feminists argue. Nontobeko Ntombela (2013) A Fragile Archive: Refiguring/Rethinking/Reimagining/Re- presenting Gladys Mgudlandlu , unpublished MAFA dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, pages 66 and 67.