After living in the bush in Limpopo Province, in the far north east of South Africa, for 10 years, I recently travelled north, and am currently based in Bristol, exploring where my next home will be. Whilst in South Africa, I set up a social and environmental impact organisation called Zingela Ulwazi Trust (meaning Hunt for Wisdom), which is thriving. We offer training to rural South African women in permaculture food gardening, business development, self defence and stress reduction, four aspects we believe to be crucial for a woman’s independence.
This vocation is an attempt to contribute to and read the South Africa landscape, and has immersed me in the complexity, trauma and beauty of my birthplace, sometimes to the point where I felt I was drowning, sometimes where the idea of home became a reality.
My artworks are made to take a breath from that submerged state, to surface and inhale the life-force of beauty, to know what I need to create, to connect me to the vibrancy of the ecological, human, spiritual, geological landscape that offers coherence, splendour, paradox, truth.
From 2000 to 2012 I lived in Australia, where I qualified as a counsellor and group facilitator, which I continue to offer online and in workshops. Whilst in Australia, I longed for home, for South Africa and her multiple leylines that have pulsed through me all my life. I returned to initially work with white lions in the Timbavati region before starting Zingela Ulwazi, and wilderness has been my sanctuary. After being home for a few years I developed an illness, one of the symptoms was chronic fatigue. When I shared with a friend how the lack of creativity was draining me, he brought me calico and embroidery silks, and that is where this journey began. The patience I developed stitch by stitch, as I fell in love with the colour, shapes and magic appearing before me, completely changed my life, and aided my recovery.
I hope that my work catalyses the intersection of wonder and miraculous life for the viewer, in beauty and mystery.