Break Dance

The artist revisits the grey areas of apartheid era to the present plights of inequality and racial issues in work spaces. The painting depicts maids who work tirelessly to make a living but are subjected to racial injustice and mistreated. Being a sore issue that many go through, Mncela identifies the women with his own mother with due respect, and channels the beauty in his work with a sense of pride, unbrokenness and humor in defiance of dancing to the same tune while identifying with such situations  in the present age. The figures, one scolding a cat, one sweeping with a broom, and the one portrayed as a dog, bemoan the racial abuse, bullying and intimidations that many a maid and nanny’s face behind closed doors of their employers. Mncela voices his grievances in this work with a fierce intensity mingled with a sardonic resistance.