Songezo Zantsi

Songezo Zantsi’s paints poignant moments of human interaction draw on a long history of realism in painting. Zantsi features natural poses, movements, and attitudes which are reflective of social realities that surround the artist and which he proposes are responsible for the culture of a society.

His brushstrokes, muddy and applied quickly, reveal a stylistic signature influenced by modernist artists such a Walter Sickert, Gerard Sekoto, and Winslow Homer. A mix of wet and semi-dried oil paint, applied with old brushes, lend the paintings a soft and loose rhythm which the artist pairs with a compositional and proportional acuity.

Making use of scenes photographed by the artist, as well as images from a personal and national archive, Zantsi alludes towards a pervasive and untenable link between the contemporary and the recent past. The artist presents, for example, an image of three young children playing on the street, as well as an image of elderly women beating another woman suspected of being a political spy. Another scene features a man walking home from work carrying groceries, and yet another features a large procession of horseback riders at a traditional wedding ceremony. Such choices are inspired by the artist’s desire to create, in his words, “a visual archive of life in South Africa.” This archive through the artist’s sensitive eye reveal s consistencies within an evolving cultural environment.

In 2022, Zantsi presented his first solo exhibition titled IInkumbulo and in 2024 is second Iyabulela Ilali at Vela Projects, Cape Town. He has been part of group exhibitions at the Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town (2021) and Youngblood Gallery, Cape Town (2022).