Emafini by Lona Ndzimande | Mixed media on canvas | 110cm x 86cm.
LONA NDZIMANDE
LONA NDZIMANDE (b. 2000) lives and works in Cape Town.
In 2023 she obtained a Diploma in Fine Arts at The Ruth Prowse School of Art in Cape Town.
Her practice moves between portraiture and collage, addressing the silences and pressures imposed on Black women by tradition, purity culture and society at large, and challenging the norms taught to police and oppress them.
“Through portraiture and collage, I create figures that hold both vulnerability and resistance, reclaiming agency within spaces that have historically sought to define and contain them. My layered textures, playful fashion and beaded eyes undo generations of patriarchal conditioning — wiping away narrow societal expectations and rewriting a new narrative of autonomy, joy and self-determination, reclaiming ownership of the image and establishing a bold and unshakable presence. These paintings become declarations, expressions of what was restrained, softened, or left unspoken. The title of this body of work is What I Meant to Say, both a personal reflection and a collective gesture toward autonomy, sensuality, and self-definition.”
In 2025 she was selected as a winner of the WORLDART10 competition, and in 2026 she held her first solo exhibition (sold out) at WORLDART in Cape Town. That same year her work was also shown at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, RMB Latitudes Art Fair and the FNB Art Joburg art fair in Johannesburg.
SOLO & GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2026 Reframing the visibility, Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town
2026 WHAT I MEANT TO SAY, WORLDART, Cape Town
ART FAIRS:
FNB Art Joburg 2026
RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2026
2026 Investec Cape Town Art Fair