The oil paintings of self-taught artist Cinga Samson (b. 1986, Cape Town) address themes of youth, blackness, masculinity and spirituality against the backdrop of post-colonial South Africa. Figurative self-portraits, the works depict the artist posed in front of landscapes that are surreal composites of his own fantasies and the topography of South Africa. The formal composition of the paintings lend them a traditional, almost anachronistic feeling that is interrupted by the artist’s contemporary clothes, intricately patterned fabrics often bearing the insignia of fake fashion brands commonly found at local street markets. The artist’s focus on beauty is also manifested in the plants, flowers and accessories that his subjects hold or are surrounded by. Samson’s works speak to his pride as a young African man, while at the same time a looming darkness permeates the paintings, suggestive of something more ominous.
To date, Samson has held three solo exhibitions at blank projects: Safari Fantasy (2017), Ubugqoboka Magqoboka(2016) and Thirty Pieces of Silver (2015). He has participated in several group shows, including Mapping Black Identities(Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, 2019); Hacer Noche (Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Oaxaca de Juarez, 2018); open agenda (blank projects, Cape Town, 2018); A Painting Today (Stevenson, Cape Town, 2017); In the night I remember (Stevenson, Johannesburg, 2013); Our Fathers (AVA Gallery, Cape Town, 2012) and Strata at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town (2011), where he completed a residency. In 2017, Samson won the prestigious Tollman Award, and in 2018 he exhibited with Nicholas Hlobo at the Maitland Institute, in a two-person show titled Umthamo.
“Cinga Samson’s self-portraits present a complex image of black male sensuality and youthful pride. While the figure’s clothing and posture celebrate an aspirational vision of material wealth and luxury often surrounded by rich foliage and bathed in lush patterning, the hollow eyes and dark overall palette hint at a more brooding, introspective gaze that rejects superficiality. For me, this tension between the artist’s inner and outer worlds, and the constructedness of both, is at the core of Samson’s work.”
– Gabriel Ritter, Curator and Head of Contemporary Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art
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curriculum vitae
1986 Born in Cape Town, South Africa
Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa
education
2009 Commercial Photography, Stellenbosch Academy
2008 Course in Graphic Design at Learn to Earn in partnership with Stellenbosch University
solo and two-person exhibitions
2019 NaluLwandle, NaliKhaya, blank projects, Cape Town (upcoming)
2018 Umthamo, Maitland Institute, Cape Town (with Nicholas Hlobo)
2017 Safari Fantasy, blank projects, Cape Town
2016 Ubugqoboka Magqoboka, blank projects, Cape Town
2015 Thirty Pieces of Silver, blank projects, Cape Town
2011 Rusting Iron, AVA Gallery, Cape Town
selected group exhibitions
2019 Kubatana, Curated by Kristin Hjellegjerde, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Øvre Eiker
2019 Mapping Black Identities, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
2018 open agenda, blank projects, Cape Town
2018 Hacer Noche, Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Oaxaca de Juarez
2018 blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin
2017 17, blank projects, Cape Town
2017 A Painting Today, Stevenson, Cape Town
2016 Figure, blank projects, Cape Town
2015 Furniture, blank projects, Cape Town
2013 In the night I remember, Stevenson, Cape Town
2012 Our Fathers, AVA Gallery, Cape Town
2011 STRATA, Greatmore Studios, Cape Town
residencies + workshops
2015 Popty Bach, Llanfihangel-ar-Arth, Wales
2006 Isibane Creative Arts, Khayelitsha, Cape Town
awards
2017 Tollman Award
publications, essays + reviews
2019 Cinga Samson: Capturing the Beauty and Spiritual Side, of Young African Men, by Katy Donoghue, Whitewall Magazine
2019 INSIDE OUT the inner worlds of oil painter Cinga samson demand the viewer looks beyond the surface of his works and into the self-taught artist’s intensely personal universe, by Binwe Adebayo, House & Leisure
2018 Inchule: a portrait of Cinga Samson, Established Africa
2018 Umthamo: Nicholas Hlobo and Cinga Samson, by Cheri Morris, Visi Magazine
2018 Nicholas Hlobo and Cinga Samson at Maitland Institute, by Sean O’Toole, Artforum International
2017 Cinga Samson: Safari Fantasy, Contemporary And
2017 Of Silver and Savages: Cinga Samson and Andrew Gilbert at blank projects, by Annemi Conradie and Natasha Norman, Art Throb
2017 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts awarded to Cinga Samson, 13th Annual Tollman Award
2017 Cinga Samson paints ‘a young man that is desirable in his own sense’, by Louis McCann, Between 10 and 5
