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Atang Tshikare

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Atang Tshikare

(Born 1980, based in Cape Town)

Puruma, 2025

Mixed media

Thanks to Edvin Buregren, Utskottet, Malmö

Produced with support from Pro Suecia Barbro Osher Foundation, Hjalmar Wicander Foundation, and Wanås Konst Patrons Circle

Atang Tshikare’s sculptures invite tactile curiosity by experimenting with and combining materials such as bronze, ceramics, glass, stone, clay, and wood in unexpected ways. His work is inspired by dreams, myths, rituals, flora and fauna as well as organic forms found in the surrounding landscapes. Puruma means “roar” in Setswana, the mother tongue of the South African artist. Tshikare has created a hybrid fable, inspired by the King Protea, South Africa’s national flower, and a lion. For Tshikare, the lion symbolizes both strength and vulnerability while the opening flower signals the potential of tomorrow. Puruma reflects the artist’s strong connection to his Setswana heritage, and especially the concept of “life spirit,” which exists in and connects all things—from the smallest drop of water to stones, animals, and humans, and even planets and celestial bodies. Reflecting this unity of all things, the fable animal sits atop a nest of branches, its body mirrored in the water surface below, while the sky and sunlight in turn is reflected in an eye at the center of its crown head.