Mthobisi Maphumulo is a multimedia artist based in Durban. His work in oil pastels and mono print is a critique on the social construction of society with particular interest in notion of class and the contemporary effects of colonial history. He is the founder of Amasosha Art Movement, a collective of young artists based in the city.
Mthobisi Maphumulo was born in 1988 at Imfume (South coast, Durban). When he was at school he wanted to study art but he was encouraged to study electrical engineering. He dropped out after two years to pursue his passion for art. Maphumulo is now based in Durban South Africa.
He is the founder of Amasosha Art Movement which is a collective of young Durban Artist that promote hard work, solidarity and the sharing of ideas amongst artist. His work is a critique on the social construction of our communities .He is interested in unpacking inhumane process involve in the construction and socialization of human stratification that result in the lower and upper class. Through his work he also revisit our Colonial history as a point of reference in order to challenge the residues of the past because he feels it still infringes significantly on our present life. He challenges the ideological portrayal of labor work as the symbol of progress and prosperity in his country while for him it became a symbol of struggle for environmental justice and exploitation of labor worker’s identity and dignity.
His work is also an exploration of into different mediums such as oil pastel and mono print. Mixed medium qualities are also to some extent an extension of the negotiates between the subject, the human element, and tactility in the material choices such as the fragility of oil pastel and the looseness of mono print for him it resonate with the quality we find in our environment.