WHAT I MEANT TO SAY CATALOGUE | VIEW ARTIST PAGE

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.

Lona Ndzimande’s practice explores Black womanhood through the lens of her Zulu upbringing. Using mixed media – including acrylic, Zulu glass beads, fabric, pearls, papier mâché, and paper collage – she creates layered portraits that celebrate Blackness, femininity, and self-expression while interrogating societal expectations and purity culture.

Ndzimande’s work balances intimacy, defiance, and joy, incorporating textures, draped beads, and sculptural elements to highlight resilience, sensuality, and the complexity of identity. Through her bold visual language, she builds archives of Black femininity that honour tradition while engaging critically with contemporary life.

“My latest body of work reflects on the silences imposed on Black women by tradition, by purity culture, and by society at large. 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.

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, and is both a personal reflection and a collective gesture toward autonomy, sensuality, and self-definition.”