Kenelioe-Mpho Mazibuko - Eggs that never come homes I

 Artist’s Statement

eggs that never come homes

the title eggs that never come home is from a series I had done called songs of the bedwetters which is a series of visual poems. In likeness to that series these artworks are visual poems. This poem follows a story about a father who works tirelessly to put food on his families table, but is too tired of being a man. I want to show this mirror image of a chicken and worker being the same, both existing to make things work for their survival, but at the same time feeling hopeless.

Poem:

ZULU POEM:

ubaba uyeza ekhaya namaqanda ayabuya.

lolu suku luzovalwa kodwa ubaba uzofika.

umama uthe uzofika emini noma mhlawumbe

kusebusuku kodwa ubuthongo bufike ngokushesha.

ubaba wathi uzoza.

usuku lomile nezicathulo zesikole ziyabila namanzi

avela emehlweni akhe aphelile futhi omile.

wakhombisa ngaphandle kwamaqanda kodwa

wazibeka ngephunga elaphula ilanga futhi.

kodwa ubaba wami noma ubaba nje,

noma yimuphi ubaba uzofika

English TRANSLATION:

dad comes home and the eggs come back.

this day will be done but my father will come.

Mother said he would come at noon or maybe…

it is still night, and sleep comes quickly.

, but my father said he would come.

the day is dry and the school shoes are boiling with water

from his empty and dry eyes.

showed without eggs yet

he put himself in a scent that broke the sun again.

but will my father or just my father, or

any father will come

Biography:

Keneiloe-mpho Mazibuko or more casually known as Mpho, is a young black upcoming South African artist. Born in Soweto, however, moved to then grow up in Johannesburg South, Rosettenvile. Her passion for storytelling and art, began when she explored writing on online forums as a child and taught herself to draw, sculpt and paint. This passion for art only began to manifest as she pursued art in high school and university.  Mpho has recently graduated with an honour in Visual Arts at The University of Johannesburg Auckland Park. Currently, she is working as a graphics designer while managing her budding art career. Her work centers around the idea of storytelling and capturing narratives. Due to her living between her families’ informal settlements, her own neighbourhood in Turffontien and Rosettenville as well as Soweto where her extended family resides, she interviews family members, friends, neighbours, and people she sees on a daily to capture their stories and allow people to explain where they came from and what they experience. Her immersive ways of capturing stories that do not have a chance to explain or share are one of the defining factors in the work. She presents an almost poetic story that exists in the discarded materials she uses, she doesn’t what to present or tell a story that the subject is uncomfortable with, she rather uses what they want you to see as means to define their experiences.