Nowayilethi

Nowayilethi Mbizweni
9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas, 2018

There's a ton of new paintings that I still need to upload here. I start with perhaps the best of the bunch. The painting is the second this year of Nowayilethi Mbizweni. Mbizweni is for ethnomusicologists kind of what the discovery of ancient cave paintings in Sulawesi was for prehistoric art history. Like the Sulawesi paintings the discovery of throat singing in South Africa proved that traditons are often much more universal than was presumed. Throat singing was always thought to belong to certain cultures from Siberia and neighboring countries. In 1985 Dr. Dave Darvie discovered a tradition of throat singing among the Xhosa in South Africa. He filmed and recorded a group of women on location, most notably Nowayilethi Mbizweni. I posted a film made by Darvie in a separate post. The film was shot in South Africa in 1985 and 1996.