“She’s an amazing human being and so humble too,” says artist Nikiwe Dlova, who was so intrigued and inspired by UP lecturer Dr Mpho Tshivhase that she produced an art piece to honour her.

Dr Mpho Tshivhase, a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria (UP), has recently been honoured in a pretty special way.

Accomplished academics such as Dr Tshivhase are used to acclaim. They win awards; speak at conferences, both locally and abroad; secure research fellowships at world-renowned universities; get elected to leadership positions on professional committees; co-edit books with international researchers; and are interviewed for print and radio.

Dr Tshivhase, who is also the Postgraduate Coordinator in the Philosophy Department, has achieved all those accolades. But she has now been recognised in a way that few others can lay claim to – she has been immortalised in an artwork. More than that, it was created especially for an exhibition titled ‘Women of Substance’.

And to top it all, the artist was not one of her buddies but a complete stranger who, until she started creating the work, had never even met her.

Nikiwe Dlova is the artist, and her background is steeped in fashion, both in terms of her studies and a previous job as a buyer for a major chain store. She has since carved out a name for herself as a contemporary hair artist, who uses hair extensions as a canvas to create hair art tapestries and headpieces. Local and international celebrities have been spotted in her headpieces. And she has been commissioned to create these pieces for international series on screening services, music videos and TV commercials.

Dlova came across Dr Tshivhase while researching philosophy. She was fascinated when she read that in 2018, the UP academic had been the first black woman in South Africa to graduate with a PhD in the discipline. Dlova also loved that her thesis dealt with uniqueness; it is titled ‘Towards a normative theory of uniqueness of persons’.

“I was intrigued; there should be more female black philosophers,” said Dlova, who was driven to spread the word so others can be “made aware that this is something they can do”.

What also sealed her interest was Dr Tshivhase’s surname. “It is the same as my clan name, but mine is in Xhosa. I used to be called Tshibase when I was young,” said Dlova, saying the connection made her think “this is something deeper than me”.

So Dlova decided to celebrate Dr Tshivhase in the ‘Women of Substance’ exhibition, which was organised by The Arts Company Soweto. It can be viewed at their studio at the Transwerke Building at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg until 16 September.

Dlova contacted Dr Tshivhase and the two met for lunch. It lasted for five hours. “She is an amazing human being and so humble too,” Dlova says. “She was so easy to talk to that you forget she's an academic. We spoke about families, experiences, relationships – everything.”

Dlova then created a linocut print with paint. It is not a literal portrait, but captures the essence (perhaps the uniqueness) of Dr Tshivhase. And it sports a red sticker on its label, indicating that it has been sold – and not to Dr Tshivhase, who will be gifted the original BAT or bon à tirer proof that is on show. Two people have bought prints of the artwork at R3 500 each. Two more prints are available.

Its main feature is a face, wearing glasses, as does Dr Tshivhase. Her eyes reflect sunset and water, which she loves, especially the calming sound of it flowing, even though she nearly drowned at a resort as a child.

She is wearing a crown-like headdress. “I reinterpreted the graduation cap (mortarboard) to a weaved, braided headpiece, which can also be a crown since she’s from a royal family,” wrote Dlova in the artwork’s explanatory note. On top of this headpiece are flames, an interpretation of “Tshivhase”, which means “the one who starts a fire”, she said.

There are also pink roses, which Dr Tshivhase likes and grows. And the artwork includes lilies and the flowers of her birth month, April, which are daisies, as well as her birth stone, a diamond.

A plane represents her love of travel, to places such as the US where she was a research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University from September 2021 to June 2022; to Germany where she was a visiting researcher at the University of Bayreuth for three months in 2019; and to Nijmegen in the Netherlands, where she taught African philosophy at Radboud University for about a month in 2017.

“I chose to focus on wisdom symbols (since philosophy means the love of wisdom),” wrote Dlova, explaining that “the nose” on the face is a West African adinkra symbol from Ghana called nyansapo, known as the wisdom knot. The “mouth” is taken from one of African philosopher Credo Mutwa’s books and is also a symbol of wisdom and of silence.

Dr Tshivhase, who had not seen the artwork before the opening on 12 August, said it took her by surprise. “I’m not a crier, but I got teary-eyed,” she said, touched by the insight into her personality that Dlova had captured, as well as her realisation of the importance of her Venda culture. She is from the township of Makwarela in Limpopo; this is represented in the framing of the face in a border of the traditional stripey print.

Dr Tshivhase seems destined for attention. When she graduated with her PhD, she was inundated with publicity, even making it onto the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans list.

Meanwhile, her life as a busy academic at UP continues to be her focus. Springer recently published the Handbook of African Philosophy: Key Subject Areas, which Dr Tshivhase co-edited with Björn Freter, Assistant Professor at Gettysburg College in the US, and Elvis Imafidon, a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

“There’s a lot about philosophy that I love: being able to express different views, challenge views, and raise really controversial things or things we take for granted and assume we know when we actually don’t,” she says. “That has really opened up my world. It has opened up my tolerance to differences.

“This is why I think a lot more people should do philosophy, so that they can push the boundaries of their thinking and question their own assumptions, even their prejudices, because there are some underlying prejudices that people don't really think about and philosophy can help to at least unpack those.”