Fine Art · Class of 2025
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 confront...
Artwork: Rock On Sister, Acrylic and oil on Canvas, Zoliswa Ngxongo
Artist statement
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.
Selected work
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Rock On Sister Acrylic and oil on Canvas -
Reclaimed Acrylic and oil on Canvas -
Embers in Motion Acrylic and oil on Canvas -
A Dance With Life Acrylic and oil on Canvas -
The Colour of Her Bruises Acrylic and oil on Canvas -
Unwritten Acrylic and oil on Canvas
Copyright
All creative works on the Ruth Prowse School of Art NPC website are protected by copyright. These images may not be downloaded, copied, linked to, or edited in any manner or form for use on any website, image gallery, clipart collection, printed product, or other derivative uses without express written permission from the creative. Interested in a work? Contact us and we'll put you in touch.
