Mesuli Mamba (29) is a prison warden and collage artist — roles he says complement each other well.
His work is rich and difficult. Pieces incorporate sketched self-portraits, Martin Luther King quotes, pictures of Steve Biko, with titles like The Cross Controls Her and Strength of Submission.
The only paintings Mamba saw as a child were on the back of his father’s Readers Digests, which he still collects. Growing up with six siblings in a two bedroom apartment, unable to afford oils, he started collaging when he was 14 years old.
“I just walked the streets for a while, but I was always doing the collages, hundreds of them, and just giving them away. Everyone said I was crazy picking up scraps off the road. Collage has always been the only thing I can focus on.”
When one of the new galleries opened, his friend encouraged him to take a piece in. It sold immediately.
Finding supplies is not easy. “It’s very hard to get magazines, especially the glossy type with more colours. My favourite are the women’s — more graphics and usually glossier.”
He just moved in to his new room at the prison. “Being a prison warden is tough. Real tough. But once you get used to it, you get to know the people in your community — we’re supposed to call them inmates but they’re just my machita [guys]. They don’t know about my collages yet.”