Mbali Dhlamini

Mbali Dhlamini (b. 1990, Johannesburg, South Africa) is a multidisciplinary artist and visual researcher whose practice explores the decolonisation of contemporary African identity-making through visual, tactile, and discursive forms. Working across photography, printmaking, and time-based media, Dhlamini’s research-led approach remains in constant dialogue with indigenous knowledge systems, spirituality, and the visual languages of cultural inheritance. Her process is grounded in acts of unlearning and relearning, with language, material, and image operating as repositories of memory and knowledge.

A recurring focus within Dhlamini’s practice is the cultural and symbolic life of cloth, particularly indigo-dyed textiles and garments as carriers of spiritual, social, and historical meaning. Her acclaimed series Look Into emerges from sustained research undertaken in Dakar, Senegal, where she investigated the significance of traditional indigo dyeing within indigenous Senegalese communities. Through digitally reworked colonial portraiture, these works reopen questions of authorship, power, and representation, while foregrounding indigenous philosophies as living contemporary frameworks.

Dhlamini trained as a printmaker at Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg, before completing a National Diploma and Bachelor of Technology in Visual Arts at the University of Johannesburg, followed by a Master of Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her work has been exhibited widely across South Africa and internationally, including presentations in Washington, Beijing, Venice, and Dakar, and is held in significant public and private collections including JPMorgan, Mercedes-Benz, and the Tim Hetherington Trust. She lives and works in Johannesburg.