Artist Focus: Kimathi Mafafo

In this weeks artist focus, we would like to give light to Kimathi Mafafo.

Kimathi Mafafo (b. 1984) - represented by EBONY/CURATED - is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges from embroidery, and oil painting to installation. Born in the semi-arid Kimberley in the Northern Cape of South Africa, Mafafo questions historical stereotypes around gender inequality in Africa. She primarily focuses on celebrating the black female and abstracted forms, placing them in often verdant imagery characterised by lush greenery and sensuous drapery, far removed from the dusty mining town where she grew up.

‘While her compositions may burst with riotous plant life, each leaf and frond remain meticulously executed. Her compositions are seductive in their level of detail yet remain curiously flat, emphasising their highly staged nature and the narrative element, which is central to her work. Her imagery is partly guided by her desire to celebrate the black female form, inspiring women to embrace their own worth and beauty. Her earliest works are partly autobiographical and tell the story of a woman withdrawing from the urban lifestyle and finding strength in nature and within herself. Mafafo works alongside Mustapha Saadu — a tailor from Ghana — with whom she has collaborated on a series of embroideries telling stories of women trapped under the weight of tradition and not fully realising their worth. Embroidery is an ancient transcendent, and Kimathi, as an emerging female artist, has found solace in the art form, transforming herself and her artwork. ’ - 'This Woman’s Work’: a brief reading of Kimathi Mafafo’s artwork by Dr Same Mdluli, Arts Writer and Historian.

Mafafo’s practice in painting and embroidery work is a raw articulation of two mediums that have embodied the Black woman and/or female’s body within the tradition of women’s work. In these, she creates a tension between becoming and being, concealing and revealing, retreating and showing up, all of which embody the arduous negotiations Black women have to make in navigating their existence in society.

Mafafo’s artworks can be found in important public and private collections worldwide, and she is currently showing in the group exhibition As Tides Change, on view until 4 December 2025.