Zoliswa NGXONGO

My body of work is a visual excavation of memory, identity and maternal rupture.

This work critiques idealized notions of motherhood, drawing from personal experience to challenge cultural expectations of maternal sanctity. It is a confrontation. A refusal to romanticize pain. A declaration of survival. 

I use myself as the primary reference, positioning the body as both archive and witness. Through portraiture and abstraction, I revisit time capsule moments - those buried beneath silence, trauma, and maternal absence. My process is intuitive and emotionally driven, often beginning with a sensation or image that resurfaces unexpectedly.

Working exclusively on 100% cotton, fine-weaved canvas, I use oil paint to explore colour, texture and emotional resonance. Each canvas becomes a site of resistance, where colour and form reclaim what was once silenced.

My practice is not about remembering - it is about re-authoring.