There’s plenty of celebration for Durban born artist, Luyanda Zindela who was announced as a runner-up in the Sasol New Signatures Competition held at the Pretoria Museum recently.

Zindela will be graduating with a Masters Degree in Fine Art during the Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) Faculty of Arts and Design graduation ceremony on Thursday, 05 September 2019.

As a runner-up in the competition, Zindela walked away with a whooping R25 000 in prize money for his 111 cm x 132 cm portrait, titled Phowthah sis Mgabadeli which he created using pen and pine board.

Nomfundo Mgabadeli, the person drawn on the art piece is Zindela’s best friend from University. Explaining the story behind this delicate piece he said; “She’s my best friend from University, only to later find out that we lived across the road from one another as children but never actually met.”

He took a break from traditional art making for a while to focus on his studies but values his recent achievement whilst drawing huge motivation from it. “Winning the runner-up prize was a great validation which made me feel that I could still make art that resonates with people,” he said.

Going forward Luyanda still aims to enter other prestigious art competitions. “One of my mid long term plans is to enter the BP portrait and the Future Generation art competitions, these are some of the largest art competitions in the world and these are great opportunities to break into the international art industry,” he added.

Besides studying, Zindela who very much admires local artist Tony Gum also works at DUT serving day to day commitments like lecturing, tutoring and assisting students with academic writing.

The versatile artist considers talent as a ‘baseline minimum requirement’ in the Fine Arts field for anyone looking to make a career out of it. “Basic things like deadlines and professionalism become far more important in terms of separating the consistently great artists from the rest,” he stressed.

Pictured: Luyanda Zindela next to his art-piece “Phowthah sis Mgabadeli”.

Mncedisi Jiyane