The Kaleidoscope of Black Life (I)
Our latest issue features the works of seven artists who deftly deploy diverse materials to depict varied dimensions of Black life with sensitivity and nuance, each like a single hue in a kaleidoscope.
From The Show by Tshepiso Moropa
Our latest issue features works by seven artists—Siviwe James, Nabeel Essa and Tanzeem Razak (working as a pair), Tshepiso Moropa, Zani Sizani, Lebo Thoka, and Kameron Walker—that cast light on the kaleidoscope of Black life.
They are the first group of finalists, selected by artist and educator Sedey Gebreyes, and curators Liz Ikiriko, and Janine Gaëlle Dieudji, for their originality and visual appeal, from more than 100 submissions that came in via our second global call for art, held in 2023. (The second group of artists will feature in other issues to be published this year.)
Based in South Africa and the United States, these artists deftly deploy multiple materials and techniques—bamboo, archival research and projection, painting, pen work and photography, and collage, digital manipulation, and installation—in their explorations of urban Black life, womanhood, collective memory, and identity.
In the foreground of each piece, there is a Black body deliberately represented without tonal range to eliminate the relevance of shade yet highlight the importance of Black beauty, stillness, nonchalance and lightness—all states in which Black people exist but are so rarely depicted.”
Zani Sizani on her series entitled "My City"
Rooted in each artist's specific worldview and experience, these works offer doorways to look, with close attention, at the multi-layered realities of contemporary Black life.
See more below.
