Yolanda Mazwana from the Eastern Cape is a self-taught visual artist based in Johannesburg, currently specializing in painting.

Her work is centred around mental illness, popular culture, phobias, relationships and storytelling and her style being described as an amalgamation of abstract expressionism, neo-expressionism and symbolism. She currently lives and works in Johannesburg.

Mazwana’s recent solo exhibition Symptoms of Nothing at Kalashnikovv Gallery (2019) explored experiences, scenarios, thoughts, panic attacks and environments that were re-imagined into characters that represent the questions of a possible hypochondriac.

Following her previous solo exhibition Secret Homegirls at Daville Baillie Gallery (2019), Mazwana delved further into the observation of the agoraphobic secret home girls.

As a body of work Symptoms of Nothing is a combination of textures and colours that define the intensity expressed of a hypochondriac.

These compositions determine what it means to not know what you are going through or why you are going through it.

Mazwana is the 2019 recipient of the Bag Factory Young Woman Studio Bursary, generously funded by the Bag Factory alumni artist Sam Nhlengethwa.

The Bag Factory Young Woman Studio Bursary offers an emerging/early career woman/womxn artist (under 35) a 12-month fully funded studio bursary at the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios.

As the recipient of this studio bursary Mazwana will also have a studio crit session with Sam Nhlengethwa during the studio residency, have the opportunity to engage with Bag Factory artists, staff, international visiting artists, and visiting curators and have the opportunity to be included in Bag Factory exhibitions and creative programmes.

See more of her work here.
Stay abreast of all things creative @sacreatives