Mary Sibande

(b.1982, Barberton, South Africa, lives in Johannesburg)

Mary Sibande studied at the University of Johannesburg where she obtained a National Diploma in Fine Arts in 2004 and a Fine Art BTech Degree in 2007, the year she entered the visual arts scene. In recognition of her achievement, so early in her art career, Sibande received the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts in 2013. In Sibande’s practice as an artist, she employs the human form as a vehicle through sculptural installations and digital prints, to explore the construction of identity, history and social relations in a postcolonial South African context, but also to attempt to critique stereotypical depictions of women, particularly black women, in our society. She inverts the social power indexed by Victorian costumes by reconfiguring it as a domestic worker’s “uniform” complexifying the colonial relationship between “slave” and “master” in a post-apartheid context.  

Sibande’s recent solo exhibitions include: The Purple Shall Govern, Standard Bank Young Artist Award Tour Exhibition, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, National Art Festival, Grahamstown, Nelson Mandela Museum, Port Elizabeth, Tathum Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, Iziko Museum, Cape Town, 2013-2014; Family Histories, Dishman Art Museum, Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, USA, 2013; Mary Sibande on Campus, University of Michigan: Department of Afro-American and African Studies School of Art & Design, Slusser Gallery, 2013; Mary Sibande and Sophie Ntombikayise Take Central Court at Spence Museum, University of Kansas, USA, 2013; Long live the dead Queen at Gallery MoMo in Johannesburg, 2009; Joburg City World Premier Annual Exhibition in Johannesburg, 2010.