THE PRINTING GIRLS (TPG) is an all-female collective of South African-based artists who work in print. Here's the background story to our #PRINTLIKEAGIRL gang: in 2009, the six founders of TPG graduated in the Arts from Rhodes University, which has always had a strong history of printmaking. The main focus has never changed, to create a platform exclusively for our country's women printmakers to share ideas, network, and exhibit together.

Since its founding, TPG has grown into a vital creative community, offering members the opportunity to collaborate across styles, techniques, and generations while championing the specific challenges and opportunities faced by women working in the medium. The collective values printmaking not only as a technical discipline but as a powerful tool for storytelling, activism, and connection. Through group exhibitions, workshops, and ongoing dialogue, TPG continues to build visibility for South African women printmakers, both locally and internationally, while nurturing a supportive space where new voices can develop alongside established practitioners.

Lerato Nkosi ( b. 1993, Mpumalanga, South Africa; lives and works in Johannesburg ).

Drawing from her experiences as a young girl growing up in a sheltered world that was created for her by her predecessors, she has developed a dynamic practice that examines the intricacies of existing in the world as a woman with the awareness that the teachings are impacting and affecting her existence.

Her work employs ink and stamps as a vital, organic, multifaceted material. For Nkosi ink and stamps are mediums that stain and certify with their contact on any surface, these materials arethose that never leave a surface the same after being in contact with it. The stamp and ink is always used to verify and ordain documents of importance which grants the holder automatic approval to the decision of others, this process is always handled by an individual of authority.

The teachings of parents onto the girl child is embedded in and never leaves her the same as she previously was, with the ideas that whatsoever has been stamped and inked upon her is approved. The medium tempers heavier subjects that are faced in societies regarding the expectations of a woman. Investigating the medium allows Nkosi to overcome her daily conundrums and escape the victim mentality

Lerato Nkosi is the winner of the inaugural ANNA Award. The aim of the award is to discover, recognise and nurture a new generation of women-identifying artists from the African continent and the diaspora.