Zinhle Ka Nobuhlalusa

Zinhle ka'Nobuhlalusa (b. 1993) is a South African self-taught mixed-media artist. ka'Nobuhlaluse's (legally Manzini) practice is deeply intertwined with her rigorous academic and personal pursuits. Currently based on Pennsylvania, USA, she is undertaking a dual-title PhD in Philosophy & Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a focus on Black existentialism, Feminist Philosophy, and Critical Philosophy of Race.

This scholarly foundation, combined with experience as a certified 200hr Yoga Teach, profoundly informs her artwork. Zinhle's art centers on the naked Black femal flesh, creating a powerful dialogue between resistance and violence at the intersections of self and societal identity. Through her work—a blend of memory, illusion, and feminist joy—she offers parts of herself to the viewer.

Her debut collection utilizes pencil, charcoal, paint, and texture to explore and challenge conventional views of the naked body. Drawing inspiration from feminist scholars, she confronts the concept of the Black woman's body being "pornotroped," a term coined by Hortense J. Spillers. Simultaneously, her art celebrates the body as a site of powerful resistance. This is explicitly referenced in works titled after chapters from Pumla Dineo Gqola's book, Female Fear Factory. For instance, her piece "Fearing Feminist" is a "(re)memory" of activist Simamkele Dlakavu during the 2016 #RUReferenceList protests, highlighting a legacy of feminist solidarity and resistance.

Her artwork assembles her scholarly interest and yoga; it centres on the naked Black female flesh. Zinhle plays with the representations of Blackwomen's self and societal identities at the intersections of resistance and violence. In her work, she offers parts of herself created from a place of memory, illusion, and feminist joy. 

This debut collection is an aesthetic representation of her body and other Blackwomen who have made their naked bodies available to the public eye. The collection plays with pencil, charcoal, paint, and texture to trouble the naked body as dainty, sexual, vulnerable, and recognises the monstrosity that is Blackwomenhood. The re-representation of the public images seeks to express how Blackwomens naked bodies no matter the form, are, have, and always-already bare the potential to be "pornotroped" as we are reminded by the African American literary critic and Feminist scholar Hortense J. Spillers in her icononic essay "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book" (1987). At the same time, Blackwomen have always resisted this potentiality and have used their bodies as a resistant modality. Three of the works' titles ("Fearing Feminists”, "Foreign Familiars", and "Femicidal Intimacy") are chapters of the South African literary critic and Feminist scholar Pumla Dineo Gqola's forthcoming book Female Fear Factory (2021). These images speak to this feminist resistance as we see in "Fearing Feminist", a (re)memory of the Activist and Feminist scholar Simamkele Dlakavu in protest solidarity with the 2016 #RUReferencelist protestors.