Tuli Mekondjo
Namibia
The Twins From Omtiweedelela, 2019
About:
Self-taught artist Tuli Mekondjo works with mixed media (embroidery, collage, paint, resin and mahangu grain – a Namibian food staple) and extends these textured media into performance. Drawing on photographic archives and histories of the loss and erasure of Namibian cultural practices, she explores history and identity politics through the lens of those who lived in exile during Namibia’s independence war. Sensitive botanical vines pay homage to her forebears, fertility and continuity, whilst veiled figures comment on gendered struggle, inter-generational trauma, and displacement, bearing a quiet grief and a quest for truth.
My Grandmother’s Mahangu Field, 2019
The Holy Child, 2019
Mother of Clan, 2019.
Mekondjo was a participant in the Future Africa Visions in Time exhibition, a 2018 collaboration between the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, Iwalewahaus Bayreuth and the Goethe-Institut Namibia. She has exhibited with the NJE Collective at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2019, the FNB Joburg Art Fair 2018, and Art Market Budapest 2016. In 2019 she exhibited in the women’s show “Suffrage” at Guns & Rain, ahead of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair London.(courtesy Guns and Roses)