Thami Nonceba Dwanya
Nonceba Thami Dwanya (b. 2000, Pretoria). Nonceba is a young, black female artist who explores and utilises art to understand unconfronted parts of herself. Excelling in fine arts/ multidisciplinary portraiture she unpacks layers of understanding using paint and drawing mediums, charcoal and ink.
Motho ke motho ka batho.
Although one’s experience is personal to themselves it is not singular, as it is shared in a space with and amongst equal and opposite singular experiences.
Self understanding is “the awareness of and ability to elaborate/explain that which is considered a being which distinguishes from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action”. This abstract idea has been the topic of my work, expressed in the form of portraiture which looks at others and self for and from both others and self. Life is an experience that is personal to both the experience, but is just as personal to the those
around the experience as it is to the experience. In simple terms, self doesn’t and can’t exist without others.
Looking beyond the simplicities of the face, my practice uses colour, and texture to unpack reflection of myself in others and the perspective of others through the subject. Through layers of paint, drawing mediums, collaging, texture and colour this is a complex relationship which I unpack in my work. Silhouettes play a vital role in the visual respesenstion of presence and absence simultaneously, thus using silhouettes of existing objects or co-subjects allow me
to highlight the absence and presence of others in the understanding of self, prioritising and emphasising balance/coexistence as the basis for one’s relationship with themselves.
Read More
