Abstract Composition

Notes

Abstract Composition, created in 1963, is a beautiful, swirling motif of curved and intertwining structures. The present lot bears stylistic similarities to the abstract symbolic language found in Mgudlandlu's Women in Forest¹ (fig 1). The narrow, vertical format was also used by the artist in arboreal ink compositions featuring birds and figures collecting or working with wood.

These rare ink works demonstrate Gladys Mgudlandlu’s unique style of drawing and how she modulated form with tone to depict a unique visual landscape with a a beguiling overlay of gestural hatching and mark-making.

^1. Elza Miles (2003) Nomfanekiso, Who Paints at Night - The Art of Gladys Mgudlandlu, illustrated in colour on page 86, cat. no. 84.

(fig 1)Women in Forest (1962) illustrated in Elza Miles (2003) Nomfanekiso, Who Paints at Night - The Art of Gladys Mgudlandlu on page 86, cat. no. 84.