Puleng Mongale's 'Holy Gang' digital collage
South African artist Puleng Mongale discusses her digital collage 'Holy Gang,' which uses self-portraiture and a remembered church to envision a spiritual
Puleng Mongale's digital collage Holy Gang combines a church from Fateng-tse-Ntsho with multiplied self-portraits to explore lineage and spiritual belonging. The work is part of her Spirit series, begun in 2021, where she uses self-portraiture and white cloth to embody her female ancestors. The white cloth acts as a visual language of transcendence, connecting her to her forebears regardless of their religious affiliations.
The Image and Its Symbolism
The artwork features the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk in Afrika from her mother's hometown. Mongale states this church entered her core visual memory from childhood visits. In the collage, a group of women, created from her own multiplied image, appears to walk toward the building. Yet she clarifies the church is not their final destination.
Positioned higher in the frame is what looks like a rising sun. For Mongale, the sun represents a place to meet her ancestors beyond religious limitations. She notes her ancestors were church members, but she is not. The church becomes a backdrop for a spiritual encounter, not its endpoint.
Negotiating Home and Belonging
Mongale was born in Soweto and moved to Johannesburg's southern suburbs at age seven. Her early life involved moving between urban Johannesburg and Fateng-tse-Ntsho, where she returned yearly to visit family or attend funerals. She says this experience led her to negotiate multiple ideas of 'home' and 'belonging' without feeling entirely rooted.
This lack of rootedness directed her toward spirituality as a way of thinking about identity and her relationship to a larger collective. The remembered church is a symbol of familiarity and connection to her childhood and lineage, not a religious icon.
The Role of the 'Holy Gang'
The title Holy Gang introduces a deliberate tension. Mongale explains that 'gang' in this context suggests agency, solidarity, loyalty, movement, and collective force. It allows her to think of the women in her lineage as more than their religious practices and beliefs.
She describes the artwork as an imagined meeting place for her and the women who came before her. The white cloth in her self-portraits binds them together. She may not subscribe to their religion, but she can encounter them through lineage, memory, spirituality, and shared DNA.
Mongale does not enter the image to become part of the church. She enters to meet and journey with those women beyond it, toward the symbolic sun. The structure is part of their shared history but not the limit of their spiritual belonging.
