My City (2023)
Zani Sizani's mixed media artworks speak to a longing for ancestral connection and a return to cultural practices needed for the spiritual enrichment of Black souls.
“‘My City’ is a series of mixed-media artworks containing pen work, watercolour and photo montage. The pieces combine vernacular southern African architecture, the imagery of Johannesburg’s central business district and distorted natural elements to create the ethereal landscape of an imagined city, a city where there is a strong tie between tradition and modernity, and the wisdom that comes from each.
The co-existence of traditional architecture and the heavy concrete structures of urban life represents a longing for ancestral connection and a return to cultural practices needed for the spiritual enrichment of Black souls. 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
