STATEMENT

Having graduated from the Durban University of Technology in 2009 I majored in painting and sculpture and my chosen mediums are traditional oil paint and red clay on canvas. These materials have a historical significance and cultural relevance to my work.

 Currently my body of work speaks loudly about personal cleansing, dislocation and relocation while investigating the gender roles within the cultural boundaries of a Sotho woman born in KwaZulu-Natal. I paint distorted self-portraits of black women in dreamscapes. These female figures have dried up cracking red clay as faces, as if they are morphing into a deferent beings.

By creating this dream landscape it has allowed me to relay conceptual message via personal experiences around the notion of dislocation and create a sense of belonging.

It is a collective connection of dreams, symbols, lost love and social incidents that I have experienced. All of which is derived on how my late grandmother had a spiritual gift of healing through prayer, my mother has a gift of premonitions through dreams and that has been passed down to me. Through visual art is how I’m healing and regain that power. I am mourning in life, the parallel of life and death

In my researched  red clay has a high oxide content, giving the red clay it’s red colour that helps revitalize the skins appearance. For centuries clay has been used for medical and cosmetic purposes in many cultures. In my culture ibomvu (red clay) is a representation of becoming which is used for spiritual and physical purification.

I used my own experiences to evaluate the role and marginalization of women with in our community.