In Woman with Faith, I reimagine Edouard Manet’s Woman with Fans by placing a Black woman in a moment of spiritual reflection. Instead of holding luxury objects, she holds a Bible, shifting the focus from spectacle to stillness, from worldly display to inner life.

What gives this painting deeper resonance is the act of collaging Bible pages directly onto the surface, specifically scriptures that speak of righteous, courageous, and wise women. Texts about Esther, Ruth, Mary, and the unnamed women whose faith moved mountains are woven into the work. Their presence becomes part of the figure’s environment, enveloping her with a lineage of strength and spiritual legacy.

By doing this, I connect the personal with the sacred; the painted figure becomes not just a portrait, but a vessel of living testimony. She exists in a space where scripture and selfhood meet, where faith is not only read but embodied.

This work challenges who gets to be portrayed as holy or enlightened in art history. It recenters the Black woman as a spiritual figure; soft, powerful, and connected to God. Through Woman with Faith, I honour the quiet power of prayer, the dignity of devotion, and the hope that rises from reading words meant to guide and uplift. 

This body of work is inspired by stained glass windows found in churches; spaces where light passes through fragments to tell stories of faith. In these paintings, I use that same structure to reflect on moments from my own life: small, everyday scenes from the past, present, and imagined future.

These are not dramatic events, they are quiet, ordinary moments: laying in bed with a bible, eating some bread and making art. But I believe that these simple moments carry a deep sense of hope. In a world that often celebrates noise and chaos, a peaceful, grounded life is a blessing in itself.

By presenting these personal memories in the form of stained glass, I give them the reverence they deserve. I treat the mundane as sacred, because it is. This series honours the overlooked, the everyday, and the slow beauty of becoming. It is a reflection on faith, memory, and the grace found in ordinary life. 

In this painting, I have embedded an artwork from home within the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the first gallery I ever encountered. As an artist emerging from a small town, this gesture marks more than a personal milestone; it becomes an act of reclamation and affirmation.

By placing a fragment of home within a space that once felt distant, I bridge the gap between where I come from and where I now find myself. It is a quiet, heartfelt affirmation that I am here, that what shaped me matters and deserves to be seen at the center. In doing so, I recognize that I am both shaped by and contributing to something far greater than myself.

This act affirms not only my belonging, but the significance of the spaces, memories, and inheritances that continue to inform my practice. 

“My Practice in Practice”

There’s something about envisioning my future that makes me want to cry, but I can’t distinguish whether it’s from tears of joy because of the wonderful opportunities and achievements and things I see myself getting or tears of sadness from the mere fact that it’s probably just purely figments of my imagination that are never going to come true.

Maybe that’s why I choose to paint them; my envisioning I mean, and my memories. There’s something about materializing them or putting them out of my head to see that somehow makes them seem real like they’ve happened and they are going to happen.

I paint my memories because they are real, they are moments in my life that speak to what’s happening in my life currently. I paint the present because it’s real, the prayers I’ve been praying for years are coming true. I paint the future because I feel like it’s real, how could I not when so many of my prayers have come true, where tears of sadness have turned to tears of joy, how could I not know that it is real?

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

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