Stephen Langa

Whether through the guise of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, Patrice Lumumba, Robert Mugabe, or Thabo Mbeki, there has always been a desire for blackness to exist without the ever-present weight of being black.

Traditionally, representations of black bodies usually fall into two criteria: either as an image of immense strength and achievement, or a personification of black strife and pain. A middle ground has evidently never been an option for those living black lives, nor those watching them play out in art, film or any other mediums.

Stephen Langa’s portraiture, however, provides an alternative to this polarised normative narrative. His subjects neither fall into the category of the hero, saint or saviour. Nor do they lend themselves to being representations of poverty, suffering or woe. Instead, his works are created to merely exist in normality.

While this may appear to be an unremarkable stance to adopt at first glance, it is only through deeper reflection and examination of his deceptively humdrum scenes of black people reading newspapers, listening to music or just relaxing, that these works carry with them far more than expected.

For many of Langa’s paintings, he appears to be working in counterpoint to the canon of portraiture. In the worlds he creates, his subjects don’t exist for the enjoyment or pleasure of the viewer, but rather despite the viewer. This leaves the viewer taking up the role of voyeur peering into worlds were Langa’s many subjects dwell, unbeknownst to the loaded, expectant gazes of the viewer.

His characters pay no attention to the stares they get, but instead carry themselves regally within their settings, often with a sense of pride as their heads are often held high. In most cases, Langa’s subjects are preoccupied by goings-on within their worlds to ever realise they are being watched.

When his subjects do look out into our world from theirs, there is often a sense that they are staring past or through the viewer instead of acknowledging the viewer's presence. All of these are possible reasons for their relaxed nature.

If Stephan Langa’s creations are able to have life whist embodying all that black portraiture has not been allowed to be, it is only because his portraits are pregnant with normality; a luxury many black people have not been granted.