In Full Bloom | In Studio With Amy Ayanda
Amy Ayanda is a Cape Town based multi-disciplinary artist and musician. We recently collaborated with her to produce an original artwork for our Joburg store at 44 Stanley. The piece is inspired by our richly coloured Wild Fire Double Cloth, a reversible, 100% cotton throw. We sat down with Amy to talk about process, palette, her journey into motherhood, and the importance of slowing down.
“I’m having a love affair with blue.”
Amy is standing in front of an easel in her Mowbray studio. Behind her is a large floral scape. There’s the distinctive yellow. Warm browns. Swirls of rich blue. It’s a piece that seemingly captures the point at which she finds herself now, artistically.
“There are styles that I have become known for – like the landscapes and the florals. But last year I went through a phase of covering everything in blue. I think it was a sense of needing time to pause.”
Amy’s relationship with colour reflects her evolving process and, lately, the necessity of slowing down. It’s about breaking free from static visions of yourself. The breathing room that comes with change. And the freedom to reiterate and to reimagine.
“My final show at art school was quite conceptual. I’d done large landscapes, oil paintings, and layered work with mixed media and dried flowers. I was producing art that people loved, but couldn’t afford. When I stepped out of that, I didn’t really know what kind of art I made, and I had to figure that out. There wasn’t that application of the marketing side of things, and I felt a bit confused about who I was producing my work for and why.”
But something shifted quite soon thereafter. Around 2017, when Amy’s first child, Frances, was a year old, a kind of fearlessness took root. A vanguard, stick-it-to-the-man spirit that would bring life to the emerging Amy Ayanda brand.
“At the time, I was waitressing for 7 or 8 hours a day, and still breastfeeding. Pumping in the bathrooms and walking away from my shift with R300 a night. And then I just decided, I’m going to spend that time in the studio and, as a joke, sell my paintings for R300 each. I started making small-scale pieces, painting on paper. I would paint every single night. When my partner, Dean, came home from work, he would take over with Frances, and I’d make as much as possible. I’d photograph it, and sell it on Instagram. I made so much money that first month that I decided to quit waitressing. That changed my life.
It was such a cool period. Frances and I had so much one on one time. We’d walk in the forest, and have beautiful, connecting time. And then at night I’d go into my studio at the bottom of the house and just work – sometimes until 11pm – but it was exciting.”
From there – through an intense period of self-practice and late night studio sessions – Amy began to develop her characteristic style. Refining the Fine Art education she’d received at Michaelis to cultivate a more intuitive artistic voice.
“I think the trick was actually not being so precious about it. I stopped holding on to what I thought something should look like, and went for whatever was coming out of me at the time. I went through the motions of thinking, ‘What does the consumer want?’ But each day I went back into the studio, and worked on making it more and more my own. Over time I developed this style of repetitive mark making, and found I enjoyed working with certain colours.”
This continued for a few years, as Amy established a successful business with a body of work that took inspiration from local landscapes, fynbos and flora, and colour. But after the burnout she experienced post-COVID, and the birth of her twins, she recognised the need to slow down, and to take a more considered approach to her work.
“Back then I had this drive in me that was quite intense. It enabled me to build my brand, but it also wasn’t sustainable. I was still doing things at the pace before I’d even become pregnant with the twins. So recently it’s been about making changes to value myself, and my work. I needed fresh colour. Even looking at my brushstrokes – they were very tight, and controlled. But over this year of slowing down, everything is just looser and freer.
I still paint flowers, landscapes, and images of people holding one another. But they’re a little bit more abstract – not necessarily the mother-child connection, because I think that connection isn’t restricted to having birthed someone. And my views on the ideal way that mothers should mother, or breastfeed, are out the window. My first birth with Frances was very natural and all went according to plan. But my twin birth was 7 weeks early, and I couldn’t breastfeed. That almost spiritual way that you believe mothering or birthing takes place isn’t the same for everyone. That also helped me become a better mom. And so birth then became a big part of the images I made.”
Slowing down has allowed her to be more intentional about her craft. Although the frenzied online sale culture of COVID made her work widely accessible, she’s creating room for more one-on-one connections and collaborations. And finding joy in smaller moments.
“I really love walking. I’ll go to Newlands or Rondebosch, or the Pipe Track if I’m feeling brave. Painting also brings me back into a state of meditation – it’s like a diary entry. I’m soaking it all in. I’m grateful that I can just be with the kids and be a bit more quiet and observe more, because I think there’s a lot to gain in observing.”
In many ways, Amy’s journey as an artist has come full circle. She now lives and works in her childhood home in Mowbray – a place that provided a safe container for her early creative expression. A place that continues to fuel her connection to memory, and to motherhood.
“My studio is my old lounge, where my dad used to sit and listen to his radio. There’s a fireplace here, and it was always a very warm space. When there were thunderstorms, my sister and I used to move our mattresses in, and open the curtains. The fire would be going, and we’d watch the thunder and lightning through the window. That memory is quite a special one, and sometimes when I’m in my studio, or when Frances walks in, I think of that.
We moved back in in 2021, when my twins were 9 months old. I was the youngest of 3, and now I have 3 children. And my child goes to the same school that I went to, across the road. So it feels like quite a 360 for me. A beautiful in-sync, flowy line of time that’s come back together. Sometimes it’s scary, because being a parent is scary, but I have this sense of knowing, because home is a safe place.”
Seeing Amy now, a grown artist, and mother of 3, begs the question: what was she like as a child?
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been painting and drawing, and making up stories in my mind. I always wanted to redecorate my bedroom. I would focus on it, and it would become my whole life for a weekend. I’d even save up money to buy paint tubs and redo the walls. My room was a different colour so many times. So I always had that energy to change things up, and go for it. My parents were incredibly supportive. They didn’t think any idea was too big. When there was passion around it, we were always supported.”
This connection to home and to memory is something that Amy brings to her work. Her piece for Mungo incorporates the colours of the Wild Fire Double Cloth, and marries her earlier styles with where she finds herself now: the vivid pinks with the cooler blue tones, and the familiar fast-paced mark making with softer strokes.
“I really love this landscape. And I think both art and cloth speak to each other – to calm, sensory home environments. With weaving and with art, there’s story behind it, and process. And the fact that it’s local – there’s nothing cooler than that. We’ve got so many amazing talents here. Why look anywhere else?”
Reflecting on Amy’s course, there is a lot to be proud of. There are hallmarks of courage, and persistence. To produce a significant body of work, pursue paths in both art and music, build a brand, and raise three children… It is no wonder that she is frequently asked, ‘how do you do it?’
“I’ve learned to be quite fearless. A lot of this has taken a lot of grit. Selling art is incredibly difficult. Marketing it is incredibly difficult. But I’ve been quite fearless in the way I’ve jumped into things. I like the idea of building community, and making people feel like they can do something – that they can take a chance, because it’s definitely possible. You don’t need a ton of money. You just need to be brave.”
Find Amy Ayanda’s artwork for Mungo in our Joburg retail store at 44 Stanley, Milpark.
