SMag Women of the Year issue| The Lulama Wolf effect

Poised, cool-headed, and serene are the three words that best describe the self-sufficient spirit, beauty, and confidence of Lulama “Wolf” Mlambo.

She moves with a graceful sophistication and ease. A woman of few words, when she speaks, she makes every word count. On the style game she is enchanting, having mastered quiet luxury long before it became a trend with her minimalist fashion, sleek tailoring, and chic wardrobe. On the set of her SMag shoot, her energy is no different, bringing that swift sneak — you don’t see her coming.

When we find a quiet corner to chat, she lets out an elegant and bubbling-like laughter when I accuse her of being unapproachable.

“I’m goofy as hell, people always think I’m so serious. I love laughing, good jokes, having fun, and being free,” she corrects me. “I’m just intentional about where those things happen. So, I’m selective about where I can twerk,” she chuckles. “I never go with the flow, really, I’m a Capricorn, so everything is planned. Everything is thought out. I’m very conservative by nature. So, when I’m risqué, it’s because I want to be. I’m very intentional.”

Next, I confess that I’m far from an expert on art — I’m more of a dilettante. The 30-year-old multidisciplinary creative is now more relaxed and laughing at my silly jokes as though we are BFFs — I hope she can’t tell that I’m fanboying so hard.

“I’m an abstract and neo-expressionist fine artist,” she says. “I would like to say I’m an Afro-modernist painter. I like painting, so painting is my first medium. I express myself through self-interrogation. I interrogate a lot of issues that people go through, including mental health, offering introspection and identity — things like those that have to do with the physical body and spirituality.

"I paint according to those themes and I also explore art through the lens of creating beauty and not just pain all the time. I’m a woman and I love beautiful things. I like encompassing that beauty in my work. It’s important to create that kind of balance.”

Now that I understand her even better, the friendship that I’ve built in my head is totally happening. Mlambo is polite, welcoming, and friendly, but she’s not entirely into chit-chat — that’s my biggest observation.

Mlambo moved around a lot growing up in the Vaal, but her family found tranquillity in the small Free State town of Parys, which is the place she calls home. She always knew art was her calling. As early as primary school there would be art exhibitions and at after-care she had art teachers.

After high school she enrolled at the University of Johannesburg to study fashion and art. Two years later she dropped out, when her father discovered that she had gone behind his back to switch majors — she was supposed to be studying law. That’s when she took off as one of the country’s most celebrated content creators in the mid-2010s. She notes that, back then, she identified as a blogger before it became known as content creation.

“At art school you are taught to document and make your life a journal. That was what I was doing on Facebook — we had cameras and used the resources we had,” Mlambo says. “We also liked things, so we documented the things we liked. My first brand affiliation was Fiat and I didn’t know how to drive. They offered me a car and I called my dad to help me get a driver’s licence.”

Mlambo was booked and busy. Then, on a trip to Paris Fashion Week, it dawned on her that art needed to be her priority.

“I was with the stars and I was doing content creation for Paco Rabanne; they were treating me so beautifully,” she remembers. “We were having dinner with all these incredible people and then a lady next to me asked me, ‘What do you actually do?’ I said, ‘I’m an artist, I paint.’ When she asked to see my work, I didn’t have anything to show. Maybe a few pieces here and there, ne ke draw fela [I was merely drawing].”

She came back home and made art her priority. She worked vigorously at it in the years leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, which was when her art career took off in Europe.

“I had a lot of time to prepare. It was just me and my work. I was even telling my mother that people are complaining about the pandemic, but I’m doing fine. As an artist, you can imagine that is not an easy task,” she says.

Her biggest highlight so far was last year in Copenhagen with “Common Efforts - Intaka Yakha Ngoboya Benye”, her solo exhibition in dialogue with Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, the late Danish avant-garde sculptor. She also mentions her collaboration with Swedish retailer H&M Home as being a game-changer for her.

“The art industry is not cute, it’s not easy at all, in general. Then, obviously, we are of colour, there are also politics. But what I’ve decided to do is to not make the politics of art my life,” she says.

“When the work speaks for itself and it has nothing to do with me being a woman and people just gravitate towards my work, that’s when I know I’ve done my part. For me, the end goal is I want when young kids to open books in the same primary school I went to — in art school there is a book of mine that is part of that curriculum. In order for them to get that message I have to work hard. That on its own is a form of activism.”

If there were one piece of advice she could offer her younger self coming in the industry, it would be to be more audacious. And what about young women wanting to follow in her footsteps?

“My girls, if you believe this is something you want to do, you first have to be decisive about it. The second step is to do research about the thing you want,” she says. “The third thing is to practice — you must practice your craft every single day, even if it’s just for 30 minutes. There is a lot of power in resilience and allowing yourself to conquer the smaller, daily hurdles. If you give yourself enough time and opportunity to do that, you will eventually get to the other side. It’s not about the destination but the processes and decisions that you make to become that.”

Mlambo continues to fly the SA flag high globally. She has solo shows scheduled in Europe in November and then group shows in Los Angeles. Making homeware objets is also on her radar.