Lounging and looking fabulous—a curative Sunday combination by the ascendent South African artist, Zandile Tshabalala. Tshabalala’s eye-catching works in oil and acrylic place Black women at their centre, drawing on an array of painterly references from Kerry James Marshall and Kehinde Wiley to Henri Rousseau. “Why is it that every time that there’s a Black and a white woman present [in a painting], the white woman will be used to represent beauty… but the Black woman will be placed in these compromising situations; placed at the back?” the accomplished artist said of the traditional representation of Black women in art history, adding that her aim was to “bring that woman… forward and show that Black women can be sensual and beautiful.”
