Phumulani Ntuli

Wish List

The exhibition presents a new series of mixed media work which explore the intersections of desire, aspiration, and consumer culture. Ntuli describes each piece as functioning simultaneously as an archive and a reflection — collecting fragments of visual and material culture to reveal how personal longing is shaped by digital economies and social expectations. In this sense, the works resonate with the concerns of American Surrealist and post-Surrealist artists of the 1960s and 70s, who similarly sought to make sense of a world that felt increasingly irrational, mediated, and disjointed. Like those artists, Ntuli uses juxtaposition and fragmentation as tools to reflect the psychological and social conditions of this particular moment in time, acknowledging a reality that often appears more surreal than real.

The works are intimate in scale, pared down in colour, and relatively simple in composition. Limiting his palette to two or three tones and introducing only minimal chine-collé elements, Ntuli focuses on clarity and restraint rather than the densely layered approach seen in his larger works. They are assembled using fragments of pronto-lithography, painting, chine-collé, and collage, including elements of found imagery, handwritten notes, and online advertisements. By collaging these disparate elements, the series maps the tension between need and fantasy, utility and ornament, self and society. For the artist, each work acts as a speculative inventory — a personal and collective record of what is longed for, bought, saved, or imagined.

The artist is interested in the notion of Wish List as accumulated records, and their existence in the digital space. Materials such as wrapping paper, receipts, printed screenshots, and ephemeral packaging are repeated, layered, and reconfigured into compositions that blur distinctions between the tangible and the virtual. In these accumulated portraits of desire for consumer goods, Ntuli interrogates the complicated relationships we as consumers have with our belongings, our financial situations, and what types of access these provide.

Wish-list II, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.

43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

From the wish list, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.
43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Izintsalela, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.

43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Celestial Wash I, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle and handwork.

43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Celestial Wash II, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle and handwork.

43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Celestial Wash III, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle and handwork.

43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

BEFORE THE ELECTIONS, 2025
Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.
73 x 103.8 cm

R 53 360.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Whimsical Note I, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle and handwork.

43.9 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Whimsical Note II, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle and handwork.

43.3 x 43.3 cm

R 29 900.00 VAT Incl. Framed

A SCENE FROM THE PUPPET SHOW, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.

100 x 77 cm

R 53 360.00 VAT Incl. Framed

FROM THE PUPPET SHOW, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.

112x 88.8 cm

R 64 360.00 VAT Incl. Framed

GIVING A BLIND EYE, 2025

Oil based monotype, pronto lithography, Chine Colle, collage and handwork.

92.3 x 110.2 cm

R 64 630.00 VAT Incl. Framed

Phumulani Ntuli (b. 1986) is a contemporary South African multidisciplinary artist. Working between documentary and fiction, Ntuli’s practice deals with omissions within archives. As he explains: “The continued themes I have explored in my practice have been notions of black futurity, the archive and its tensions. I consistently delve within notions of collective autobiographies and their surrounding social political conditions.”

 

You can explore more of his work here.

In the evolving landscape of contemporary printmaking, Phumulani Ntuli’s Wish List series emerges as a reflective meditation on longing, memory, and material culture. Developed in collaboration with collaborative printer Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim at David Krut Workshop, this ongoing body of work (March 2025–present) marks a new chapter in Ntuli’s multidisciplinary practice.

Ntuli’s practice moves fluidly between collage, animation, and printmaking, often interrogating how images are made, stored, and remembered. Wish List extends this inquiry into the surroundings of consumer desire and digital aspiration. Each work operates simultaneously as archive and reflection, collecting fragments of visual and material culture to reveal how personal longing is shaped by social expectations and online economies. READ MORE

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