Noria Mabasa (b. 1938) — Venda Sculptor & Potter

Noria Muelwa Mabasa was born on 10 May 1938 in Xigalo (Shigalo), Limpopo Province. Self-taught, she began working in clay in 1974, prompted by a recurring dream — first experienced in 1965 — of an old woman teaching her to model the material. Two years later, in 1976, she became the first Venda woman to work in wood, a medium traditionally reserved for men, encouraged by fellow Venda sculptor Nelson Makhuba.

Mabasa came to national and international prominence in the 1980s through her inclusion in two landmark exhibitions: Tributaries (1985) and The Neglected Tradition (1988). Her naturalistic, coil-built ceramic figures — often finished in enamel paint and fired in open straw fires — drew early acclaim, while her large-scale wood carvings, worked from single tree trunks, later won her global recognition. One of her best-known works, The Flood (1994), carved from a fig tree trunk, took nine months to complete.

Her sculptures draw on Venda spirituality, mythology, and traditional ceremony, alongside the lived experience of women, gender, race, and the social aftermath of apartheid. Her work is held in institutional, corporate, and private collections in South Africa and internationally, and has sold at auction from realised prices as low as $77 up to $47,078 — a 2009 record for Legend of Hlopeka at Strauss & Co.

In 2002, Mabasa was awarded the Silver category of the Order of the Baobab by the South African government for her contribution to the arts, and she later received an Honorary Doctorate in Art and Design from the University of Johannesburg.