Q&A ︎︎︎

Be patient with yourself.

Phumelele Kunene in conversation with Ditiro Mashigo

Phumelele Kunene
︎ ︎︎︎ ︎

Ditiro Mashigo
︎ ︎︎︎ ︎

In early 2025, Phumelele Kunene met with fellow artist Ditiro Mashigo to discuss the former’s body of work and exhibition In My Element at Victoria Yards. Photographed using film photography back in 2017, this deeply personal photographic essay captures Phumelele’s late mother’s belongings. In a highly empathetic conversation, the two artists delve into the origin story of this moving body of work, as well as Phumelele’s intertwined trajectory as a photographer and a mother who lost her own at the age of 19. Below is a condensed and edited version of their conversation.    

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Ditiro Mashigo (DM): How did your early experience with your mother's appreciation for art shape your creative journey?

Phumelele Kunene (PK):  When I was young – I think this was in primary school – my mother always loved collecting my drawings and paintings. She would frame them and then hang them up on the wall in the house. She wasn't just encouraging my academics, but also my artistic nature. Now whenever I have exhibitions, I draw back to her doing that around the house. It felt like she was showing me what my future would be. So I think that memory is very significant to my reason for walking this artistic journey and just sticking it through, regardless of the financial constraints, because it's really something that I love.

DM: That's so beautiful. Because you had art very much at your fingertips from a very young age, how did it evolve from these naive drawings and paintings to the photography medium?

PK: The drawings and the paintings – I did those mostly in primary school. But over time I think the academic side of school kind of killed my artistic expression because I wasn't really doing art at school as a subject. It was something that I'd do in my free time. And the older I grew, the less free time I got... But then my mother bought me a phone – I think late high school – and it had a camera. Of course, I used to have fun with it, but I would take photographs. I would take portraits of other people. I would take abstract photography. And then I'd post it on my Facebook, and get reactions from people who would like my photographs. I think the more I did it, the more I liked it.

When I was very young, my mother got me a [film camera] … that made me love photography in a way, that little camera. Then when I had my cell phone, I just got deeper into it by making my own photographs. And then after that, when I was done with high school, I think the love and the curiosity for photography grew more. And because my mother had already encouraged me to be drawn towards the things that I love the most... I decided to study photography.

DM: I want to touch on this technology phenomenon and how we all learned a thing or two about ourselves through posting on [social media]. Is that how you would start telling stories, was the photographic medium how you really started to evolve in your ability to curate and build?

PK: For me, it was just a thing that I did for fun. But I think the more I looked into it, I would have a whole creative process in taking those pictures. So if it was portraits of myself – it was a time where I was into dark stuff, wearing black and everything. You know, the dark nails. I loved rock music... So when I’d take photographs of myself – I really wouldn't dress up like that in public, but I'd do it at home, and then I'd take pictures. And with the reactions that I got when I posted them on Facebook, I [realised] other people also appreciated the artistic process of it. I found that actually being authentic, you'll get people that won't understand it, but also you'll get people that really resonate and understand you through what you express about yourself.

DM: This love affair you had with your gothic side… from there, did you become something else? Has your identity then shaped in different forms?

PK: I think it's really stayed the same. It's just a bit more mature now, because when you look at my dark side and you look at my work as a whole, you'll see that there's a thread and there's a sense of darkness in them. Sometimes when the images are bright, then the shadows bring in the darkness of it. So I think I'm always playing, or maybe the story in itself is some sort of darkness that I'm exposing about myself. It's still a part of me.

I'm still dressing in black, but I guess now that I'm a mom… it's a little bit more toned down, but I think it's still there. I still celebrate it. And you look at my abstract work, you can tell that there's a lot of that darkness in me and that I celebrate it a lot. And it's also in my femininity. I think a lot of my dark feminineness is what's more dominant in my personality. It will remain there forever because it's just a part of me.

Somehow we all are living the same lives, but they just play out differently.

DM: It now ties in for me as a greater picture as to how Memento Mori – your interpretation of it is so beautiful, I would say even delicate. I've seen other renditions of the same subject matter, but with yours, you want to sit with it. It's a story of peace and life and the celebration of one's absence and presence, but your ability to capture light and, like you say, light and the dark and the shades in between make your images so very captivating. So, how have you balanced your personal interpretation of your subject matter being life and the celebration of your mom and the elements that make up what you remember of her, and the beauty of the celebrated life and then also the universal story of death or life building up to this particular body of work?

PK: I think for me, I do mostly more digging into myself. And I think when I do that, authentically and honestly, I find that the work just naturally becomes relatable in a universal way. Because whatever I'm going through, some people have gone through the same thing and then it just easily makes them relate to the work and the feelings that I'm trying to invoke when I'm creating the work. So I think for me, what I do on my side is to just do a lot of self-awareness, a lot of self-development, a lot of self-reflection and a lot of pouring myself fully, honestly and vulnerably into my work. And I find that the more I do that selfishly, it makes the work relate to other people.

Because, I think somehow we all are the same and we all are living the same lives, but they just play out differently. But there's a common theme and I think the more I express that within myself, the work just becomes relatable universally.

DM: I absolutely stand with that. And I find that to be so beautiful because it does translate. As I was looking at the images again, you take a first glance and they're beautiful, but then when you take a longer glare and start to place yourself within the work, you start to see that this is a very honest body of work. And I think you've achieved that beautifully. My next question is kind of more on a technical aspect. Could you share your technical process when capturing the essence of these particular mementos belonging to your mom?

PK: I think the first step is more emotional than technical. The work in itself took me maybe seven years to create just six photographs. Of course, I took more than that, but the strongest were these six because it took me some time. Because first of all, I have to get in that headspace emotionally, fully, emotionally, and understand what I'm trying to say with the work... So it required a lot of my mental space, which I found helped me to heal quite a lot because I really had to confront the issue and look at it, understand how it makes me feel and how I am just mentally and emotionally with regards to just taking out my mother's objects and going through the memories of what they represent. When you look at the hat, you look at the pearls, her scarf, her dress, taking those things out and sometimes crying because they bring me back to our story. I think that the first thing that I have to do when I'm creating the work, is to get into that emotional space. And then I think immediately when I do that, everything just flows.

Regarding the technical part of it as well, if you look, I used a lot of soft and natural light to create a sense of intimacy. And I also played with shadows because the shadows represent the hidden parts of myself, the dark parts of myself. So I tried to take those emotions and figure out how I could balance them and make them speak with the technical part of the work and also the composition. You'll find that the items are arranged to tell a story. Their placement and how they mirrored my shared experiences with my mom as well, the closeness. They represent a sense of closeness and intimacy. [Also], I didn't do much photoshopping because that's also meant to signify the rawness of the work, you know? So, yeah, that's how I try to play around with the technical side and how it balances the emotional, because that's always what I'm trying to do with my work.

DM: And it absolutely translates – the image of the barrette and the chair without a stool. The lighting on that is eerie – the sense of absence is captured so beautifully in that moment. It’s that moment in the day where one would be sitting and looking outside. [It evokes] a memory, like that of your mom kind of sitting at the window and just looking outside and seeing people pass by. You've done a beautiful job as far as the storytelling and how the images move from one frame to the other, I definitely do see how the technical aspect really does balance well with the emotional aspect.

And that's something that I think a lot of artists kind of grapple with. I find it refreshing also to see in your work that you've done that so intentionally and it's taking you so long. Seven years is a long time to meditate on a body of work. But what you've come up with – because you were also going through the process of grief, using the practice itself as a form of meditation and healing and reconnecting and recounting, that's truly just something that one does not miss in this body of work.

PM: Yeah, I'm happy that you just get it. I love the way you're describing the work as well.

So I think while you're saying that in terms of balancing the emotional side of it, I think that [relates to] the question on what advice I'd give to emerging artists looking to channel experiences in their creative work. I think it has a lot to do with patience – I was very patient with myself because I understood that I'm not just creating work, but I'm having a whole life experience where I'm grieving at the same time, I'm healing at the same time, and I'm celebrating my mom at the same time. So all of these things can get quite overwhelming. But I found that patience, being patient with myself, being patient with the art process itself, the creative process itself, is really what helped me navigate this project.

And I find it's what made me be able to be vulnerable and be honest and authentic when creating the work. So I think not pressurising yourself to have things done at a certain time, but allowing life to walk you through it and being also very self aware. But mostly being patient with yourself is one of the greatest things you can do when putting a lot of personal experiences into your creative work or your art processes. Just having a lot of patience with yourself and understanding that it all takes time. And the more time you give yourself to allow things to just play out organically gives you much stronger, relatable work.

DM: That's true, it does. It's ironic because we live in such a fast paced world where results are demanded of us constantly, every minute. And one wants to kind of bypass emotions and feelings just to get things done and then only after trying to contextualise, but not realising that because you did not have a full grasp of what you were really going through while you were creating. So the title In My Element, how did you actually come about it? Is it built on anything that you could share?

PK: The word “element” in itself, it's meant to speak about an environment where someone is very comfortable in an environment that someone favours a lot. An environment where someone can be freely themselves in that environment. So these photographs were taken in the house that I grew up in with my mother. When I'm creating my project, I am in my natural environment, and I am in my element mentally, where I'm not just remembering her, but I'm also revisiting the memories that are very close to home.

So I just found it fitting that the phrase “In My Element” would come to explain what was happening with me physically, and not just physically, but spiritually and mentally, that I'd have to get in my element to photograph the works.

DM: So this is all from home. Where is home?

PK: This is in Lenasia [a suburb south of Soweto]. My mom passed away when I was 19, and we were living together here in this house, and she passed away in this house. So all the memories and everything happened here. And then she left me, of course, to inherit this house that I still live in with my son now. So everything  is here. So, that's why it's called In My Element, because it's just an environment that speaks to the work itself.

DM: Because now you kind of live in both a home and an archival space where you want to preserve memories for your son as well.

PK: You are so right.

DM: So is that something that you also take into your practice, that sense of care?

PK: Most definitely. And I feel everything comes full circle because this is the same space that I shared with my mom, and it's the same space that I'm sharing with my son. Now that I'm a mother, I don't have my mom around to help me navigate motherhood, but the environment itself, because of the memories that I have with her and the conversations we had together – sometimes when I'm raising my own son, the advice that she'd tell me when I was younger, it's kind of easier to remember when I'm here because it's things that have happened here that helped me also navigate motherhood myself.

DM: Wow. I'm really in awe of your practice, and I'd like to actually just touch on that nurturing. How your artistic practice honours your mother, your space, your entire life experience. Because now we are not talking only into the present and the past, but then even in the future. In what ways does your artistic practice honor and nurture aspects of motherhood that you and your mother shared?  

PK: I think it would start mostly with being spiritually in tune with myself, which is inspired by the fact that I can only connect through my mother spiritually, and that's how I can time travel from the past to the present to the future.

And I find that practice is helping me navigate not just motherhood, but my life as a whole.
The center of my life is motherhood. Everything stems from there. For me, I'm a mother first, before I am an artist or anything else. So whatever I do centers from the space of motherhood. If I have to take on a job, the first question is it gonna work around me and my son, or is it going to require me and him to be separated for me to do the work? And if it requires separation, then I don't take it, because I don't believe in separating from my son, especially at a young age, maybe when he grows older, and he requires the separation to live his life, then I'll think about it. But right now, we are at the early ages of his nurturing. And so everything I do as a mother is just centered on making sure that whatever my life is filled with, it can't take me away from being a mother. And I guess because my mother was taken away from me from a young age, it's probably one of the things that I fear the most. So I'm always trying to make sure that I am present in my son's life because we never know what tomorrow holds.

DM: The other onset of ramification of this world that we've kind of been indoctrinated into, the capitalist, fast paced technology generation, whatever it is that we're living in, motherhood has become such a tough conversation. It's like you don't really have autonomy anymore once you become a mother, but you actually do. It just doesn't take the same shape as it would when you are a single woman. But you are the one who's making these decisions. You're the one who's still venturing into a career. It hasn't stopped. You've shifted your priorities.

PK: Definitely. And I feel like also my mother put me first when it came to anything that she did in her life. She always put her children first. And I felt that's how I felt very loved by her because I knew I was number one. And so I think her mothering me like that has helped me mother and love my son the same way.

DM: That's beautiful. And congratulations on so many things. This body of work is incredible.

PK: Thank you, honey.