Mbali Tshabalala is a South African multidisciplinary artist, curator and creative entrepreneur whose practice moves across collage, painting, printmaking, drawing and photography. Born in East London in 1988 and now working in Johannesburg, she holds a degree in Fine and Applied Arts from Tshwane University of Technology and further developed her printmaking practice at Artist Proof Studio.
Tshabalala’s work is grounded in questions of identity, Black womanhood and the ways personal experience intersects with inherited histories. Across layered surfaces, fragmented figures and recurring symbolic forms, she brings African knowledge systems and contemporary lived experience into conversation. Themes of femininity, mental health, spirituality and cultural memory frequently run through the work, often considered within the realities of contemporary post-colonial African life.
Her multidisciplinary approach allows images to be assembled, obscured and reconfigured rather than treated as fixed representations. Printmaking sits comfortably alongside collage, photography and painterly gesture, giving her compositions a sense of accumulation — of histories, memories and identities continually being constructed and reconsidered.
Tshabalala began focusing on her own studio practice after several years working within curatorial and arts-administration environments. Her work has subsequently been presented through galleries, art fairs and collaborative projects in South Africa, including initiatives connected with David Krut Projects, Artist Proof Studio and Latitudes.
