Omang Malerato II

Omang Malerato II situates Malerato in a wide field of vivid green grass, the horizon softened by a blur of trees. The setting feels untouched and grounded, a landscape that mirrors the artists humble origins. Yet in this world, humility becomes majesty.

Rather than the traditionally royal lehlosi or nkoe leopard skin—reserved for chiefs, royalty, and leaders—Malerato wears black and white cowhide, from an animal accessible to ordinary Basotho people. In the context of this series, the cowhide does not create royalty; it reveals it. It reflects a parallel reality where the artist’s royal heritage—once lived quietly and without ceremony—is fully acknowledged. Here, the materials of a normal childhood become the very markers of status, giving visual language to a lineage that was always present, even if not ceremonially expressed.

Her hair is braided and adorned not with the glass beads historically introduced to Basotho royalty through trade, but with colorful wooden beads. These wooden beads, simple and organic, serve as a makeshift crown. In Malerato’s world, mundane objects become sacred; common materials become markers of leadership. The painting captures the beginning of a visual language where heritage and identity are rebuilt from the ground up, elevating the everyday to the extraordinary.