Manelisi Nene

Manelisi Nene is a self-taught visual artist from Durban whose figurative practice explores Black identity and ancestral memory. Their paintings place Black figures at the centre, poised, quiet, contemplative and vulnerable, holding space for stories that are often silenced, distorted or told from the outside.

Their work is known for quiet but powerful storytelling and a distinct visual language that blends personal memory with shared history, honouring togetherness while affirming the power of the individual.

Manelisi stages Black figures in minimal, placeless settings so that gesture, symbol and emotional presence carry the work. The palette is restrained. Chairs and everyday objects become symbols of presence, hierarchy, exclusion and the weight of inherited expectation.

Both works in Tethered Ground come from Ozalwe Embethe, a series about the passage from child to adult. It treats the search for self as an act of care, and longing as something necessary rather than something to regret.