Zanele Muholi

In 2020, being confined indoors with limited movements and access to materials, South African visual activist Zanele Muholi, best known for chronicling South Africa’s Black trans, queer and intersex communities in photography, turned to paintings and beads as the chosen medium to communicate their message and continue with activism, using self as a tool of representation. 

In Muholi’s paintings, unlike their photographs, colour plays a starring role. Costumery and vibrant colour are harnessed to explore the multiplicity of gender roles and representation.

This body of work channels the collective isolation, intimacy, and confinement brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, but also deeply personal. For the artist, painting surfaced as both a practical response and a contemplative exercise during a time of fear and uncertainty. 

Across photography and painting, Muholi plays the roles of participant and image-maker, augmenting ideas around self-representation, collective identity and Black queer visibility.