“My practice speaks to what it means and what it takes to find belonging in a foreign land.
Working with Monotypes, the layering process involved is symbolic of what I try to express in my work. By layering old family photos to create a new image, I am layering experiences of the past to reimagine a new way of looking at things.”
Falida Nkomo is a Malawian-South African artist who makes sense of and shapes her identity through her work. A second-generation immigrant born and raised in South Africa, her work is rooted in the concept of belonging in the sense of fitting in through identity, which is closely linked to an individual experience.
For Nkomo, migration begins as a starting point within her work. The archives used in her monotypes from her family photo album, a recurring source of inspiration in her practice, are expressions of reimagining the past as a conversation towards the present.
Nkomo’s expressions seek to become a language of how one traverses through borders despite their foreignness. Using her mother’s memory as a channel to engage with her Malawian heritage, her work expresses how this sense of hybridity through culture, influences the idea of shared identities and what it means to belong within the ideas of what home is.
She is currently pursuing her honours in a BA in fine arts at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.