Mark making_Transfer of Ideas across cultures

I was examining noted design blogs referenced on Treehugger.com and found Earth Architecture and a reference to an artist named Esther Nikwambi Mahlangu. I learned she was born in Middleburg, South Africa in 1935.  In 1991, she painted a prototype of the new BMW 525i model for a 1991 BMW art car collection, (see below).   

It looks an awful lot like the Dell Laptop I posted yesterday.  There seems to be a similar urge to embellish and personalize a functional object, here a car rather than laptop. To express individuality amidst conformist pressures of daily life lead to an end such as this.  It's not that different from the urge to do Graffitti, itself an art form.  Making one's mark can take many expressions. Here it is manifest in the geometric figures and shapes borne from Esther Mahlangu's regional south african artistic traditions.  Borrowing this tradition and refashioning it onto cars and now laptops heralds the urge to create that meaning, to stand out and be different.  The cultural transferance is fascinating and refreshing.


Esther Mahlangu's Ndebele BMW, 1991