LIA Portraits w/ Motlhoki Nono

Motlhoki (b. 1998, Pretoria, South Africa) is a printmaker and video artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. She defines her practice as Black Romantic Studies, examining ‘the sociopolitical contours of love’: How the articulation and experience of romance manifests at the intersection of race, class, geography and gender.
Motlhoki’s practice departs from observing the racialised gap that excludes the experiences of black people, as well as the gendered one excluding black women as the subjects of love in romantic productions. Using various lens-based media, print and digital found objects as tools, Motlhoki examines this gap with a decolonial and sociological approach, questioning and problematising the implications of this exclusion on the experience of romance for black women. Her practice operates within the absence of black romantic representation. Through a language of composition, consumption and romantic aesthetics, Motlhoki explores the romantic within the frame of the political. Her romantic based practice maps the lines of intimacy and violence within love, in an attempt to contribute towards a black romantic archive that centres the experiences of black women in particular.
Motlhoki earned her BA(FA) at the University of the Witwatersrand and has since exhibited her work internationally in Germany, New York and Switzerland, and nationally between Cape Town and Johannesburg. She has been the recipient of a number of awards and grants, and is currently the recipient of the Ernest Cole Photography award. Most recently, Motlhoki completed her three month residency in Germany as part of the Leipzig International Art Programme.