Terence Maluleke reckons with faith and life's agency with 'Like a Fish in the Water'

Like a Fish in the Water is a solo exhibition by Terence Maluleke, on view from November 21, 2024 - February 1, 2025, at Southern Guild Los Angeles, marking the South African artist’s first solo show in the US. The ongoing show features a series of new paintings expanding on Maluleke’s personal and religious symbology. Like a Fish in the Water explores themes of self-determination, community, ritual and artistic freedom while reflecting a deep reckoning with faith and a desire for a life imbued with agency and meaning.

Maluleke’s visual language blends graphic sensibility with traditional figuration, drawing from both Christian theology and indigenous African spirituality. Key motifs include a golden halo that doubles as a crown of thorns, copies of Bibles, a blue candle gifted to him by his church as a child and wooden fish sculptures. The fish, associated with the biblical miracle of Jesus and the disciples, also pays tribute to visionary South African sculptor Jackson Hlungwani, with whom Maluleke shares a profound spiritual and artistic connection.

Both artists share Tsonga heritage and trace their roots to nearby villages in Limpopo province in South Africa. Maluleke’s father was baptised by Hlungwani, and as a child, Maluleke visited his studio and compound. The pastor gifted Maluleke’s family a wooden fish carving, a symbol he often used to represent abundance, life, and harmony between humans and nature.

“As a tribute to Hlungwani, Maluleke titled this body of work after the sculptor’s habitual reply when asked by arriving guests how he was: “Like a fish in the water,” he would respond,” the gallery relays.

“Self-taught, Maluleke works in a predominantly figurative mode with a strong orientation towards allegorical storytelling using graphic lines, geometric shapes, flattened perspective and pattern. His stylised portraits, urban scenes and vivid still-life compositions explore the complex intricacies of the modern urban Black experience on the African continent…In addition to his artistic endeavours, Maluleke has extensive experience as a visual developer, having worked on productions for Walt Disney Animation Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, Netflix and Triggerfish. He is also the co-founder of Kasi Sketchbook, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to facilitate mentored drawing clubs among Johannesburg township children and young adults,” they continue.

Maluleke’s palette in this series is more muted than in previous works, dominated by golden and mustard tones, and enriched by experimental mark-making and the inclusion of unconventional materials like glitter. While his use of religious symbols evokes tradition, Maluleke injects his own perspective, offering an ambiguous approach to meaning. “In the starkness of their rendition, focus on foreground action against a flat background, and narrative impact, the works in this exhibition are reminiscent of traditional iconographic paintings,” the press release notes.

For Like a Fish in the Water, the self-taught artist and painter born in Soweto and based in Johannesburg, draws on a personal vocabulary of recurring forms—such as calla lilies, symbolising the tension between strength and fragility; portraits of his sister Nozipho, whom he views as an extension of himself; and the ‘lêkê’ plastic jelly sandal, first seen in his debut solo show at Southern Guild, Grace in Grand-Bassam. In this body of work, these elements appear alongside religious icons and contemporary objects (like a VR headset), underscoring the power of personal mythology in creating a life of significance.

As the gallery notes, "Maluleke is embedded in the city's dynamic artistic community and Black creative vanguard. His artistic approach transcends the constraints of individualistic portraiture by delving into a more comprehensive examination of pan-African identities. This enables him to depict the multitude and diversity of experiences that exist within the spectrum of Blackness."

Blue Dance portrays a crowd of worshippers in the blue and white uniforms of the Apostolic and African Zionist churches, gathered around a haloed figure. Inspired by the vibrant energy of a recent church service, the painting showcased at the art exhibition transforms rhythmic patterns of colour and shape into a dynamic interplay of movement and sound. The central figure, according to Maluleke, represents "the guider and the light." He is deliberately depicted as a grounded, anchoring presence, grounded in his own centre. In contrast, the congregants are more ambiguous—moving in different directions, with their relationship to the figure unclear, leaving open whether they are drawn to or repelled by him.

A painting of a red-roofed house with a halo hovering above it invites multiple interpretations. It represents Maluleke’s lifelong dream of building a home—a sanctuary of refuge and warmth, blessed by divine intervention. While the house appears intact, paint drips from its walls and windows, suggesting the structure is dissolving. Does this imply a forsaking of sacred protection? Maluleke, whose oeuvre springs from a deep engagement with and love for his township community, offers another perspective here: "I like the idea of human fallibility and emotional dissolution coexisting with faith. Even at our lowest, rather than closing ourselves off in shame, we can still turn to God."

"Birth, death, sacrifice, transcendence—Maluleke depicts the arc of human struggle and contemplates the pursuit of purpose and connection. His faith encompasses the creation of his own cosmology free from the strictures of doctrine and the confines of Western conceptions of formalised religion. His artistic practice is a pilgrimage of sorts, an insistence on the redemptive power of the imagination and a dreaming into being of his highest ideals," Southern Guild notes.