In this arresting monochrome-and-rust tableau, time feels less like a clock and more like a living animal that’s restless, watchful, inevitable.
You can’t tell if a person is quietly surrendering or defying by the way they tilt their head back. On the other side, a horned beast looks directly at them with an intensity that is almost human. Between them hangs a delicate vessel, poised to be offered or withheld. This very second is delicate, like the air that is almost about to be released immediately before a revelation.
Composed in stark black and white on a burnished terracotta background, the piece suggests a worn manuscript with a surface roughness like ancient parchment caked with memories. The lines have an archival quality, as if the artist had pushed instinct, ritual, and history into the painting.
The horned creature recalls mythic figures like the Minotaur, the sacrificial ram, the ancient familiar, but here it does not menace. It listens. Its sharply defined eye locks with the person’s lifted face in an exchange that feels less like confrontation and more like recognition. Human and beast seem suspended in mutual awareness.
The bowl at the center echoes ritual objects, offers plates, even a sundial, and anchors the charged space between them. It becomes a threshold: nourishment or emptiness, patience or hunger, fate or choice.
The work refuses tidy resolution. Is this reckoning? Communion? Transformation? The title offers its quiet thesis: everything unfolds in its own rhythm. The tension here is not urgency but inevitability.
Like a half-remembered myth, the painting asks us to sit inside the pause to trust that meaning, like time itself, arrives when it must.
About the Artist
Mondli “The Artivist” Kunene is a South African contemporary visual artist.
In 2019, he was recognized by Design Indaba as one of South Africa’s emerging creatives to watch. In 2022, he received an honorary award in the Theatre and Arts category at the Forty Under 40 Africa Awards in Accra, Ghana. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in India and Canada, and he has shown at Decorex Africa at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Share Your Insights
Feel free to share your answers in the comments below:
- What part of this post resonated with you the most, and why?
- How does this post connect with your own journey?
- Do you have any other bookish insights you’d like to share?
Disclaimer
The content in The Bookish Magazine is for general informational and literary purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. For full details, please read our complete disclaimer, terms, and policies on our website.
Helpful Shortcuts
- About
- Books and Blogs
- Contact Us
- Disclaimer, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service
- Editorial Guidelines
- Magazine
- Submissions
- The Bookish Awards
- Voluntary Contribution Policy
