LEBOHANG MOTAUNG

 

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Lebohang Motaung was born in 1992 in Evaton but grew up in Sebokeng. She studied at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) where she earned both her Diploma (2012) and B-Tech (2013) in fine art, majoring in printmaking. Following was a certificate of excellence in printmaking at Artist Proof Studios (2015) in Johannesburg where her art career took an accelerative turn through local and international opportunities that came her way.

She has participated in exhibitions such as Twenty: Art in times of Democracy at the Turchin Centre, Appalachian State University, North Carolina (2014-2015), SMFA Art Sale, Boston, USA (2015) and A Flagrant Arcade: Contemporary Art as part of Art Africa Fair in Cape Town, (2016). She has also shown at the Turbine Art fair from 2014 to 2023, FNB Joburg Art Fair in 2016 to 2022, and Lattitudes Art fair 2023-2024.  Black Hair Matters at Eyethu Art Space in Soweto (2018) is another exhibition to note. She also participated in a number of all female exhibitions including She impressions at Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg, 2017. Prints and Princesses at Henry George gallery in Johannesburg and Ambiguous at MM Art house in 2020.

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A recipient of commissions, Motaung coordinated a Human Rights Mural in Johannesburg (2014), the Zazi Campaign Bill Board Designing that promoted an awareness and use of contraceptives by young girls (2014), a Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) Research project on Cosmo City (2015), and another Mural project for the Johannesburg Hollard building (2016).

In 2015, Motaung took up a four-month residency at The School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA where she learned advanced intaglio techniques and contributed as an assistant teacher to The School’s programme. She also took up 8 months residency at The Project Space in Johannesburg.

 

In 2020, she was part of The lockdown collection which was aimed at capturing the South Africa’s historic covid 19 lockdown and support vulnerable artists. She was also one of the 16 artists who was part of the give her a crown campaign which was an initiative aimed at advocating more awareness about gender based violence. In 2021 she was part of a museum show titled Textures The history and Art of Black Hair, Kent State University, Ohio, USA. She is currently practicing art as a full time visual artist. In  2023 Motaung  had her first solo exhibition with Lizamore and associates  gallery at The Rosebank Firestation. In 2023, the Ohio Kent state university  museum added 3 of Motaung’s prints to their collection.  Motaung Also has a collection of artworks housed in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.​​​​​​​​

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"As a hairstylist and a fine artist, my mission has always been more than making women beautiful. I am committed through my vocations to espouse and instil a sense of confidence and contentment at the same time reflective of their subjectivities and agencies necessary to confront vicious shaming, stereotypes and insults.

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 For me, hair allows women flexibility “to be creative, dramatic and change” their visual patterns and registers, even aesthetic, fashion, trending statements whenever suitable to them, and for their own purpose and liking. Here, hair is agentive and inherent with the potential for multiple identity renditions or endless reconfigurations as in the discourse of becoming, the inevitable shifting identities and identifications, not least disguises or camouflages as in the case of masks. This discourse is not just with respect to how women wear or address their hair and thus craft their visual outlook. It also concerns the politics of self-definition, self-expression, self-care, self-appreciation and self-loving in various irreducible forms of identity or identification, representation or signification."  - Lebohang Motaung 

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