top of page
Your ancestors are watching.. make them proud.
Artist Profile
Full Name: Phets’emajali Shongwe
Artist Name: JALI
Mediums: Painting
Materials Often Used: Acrylic paint, Oil pastels, Canvas
What’s an everyday object that inspires your creativity? Windows. Almost every evening, I have this quiet ritual: I sit by my window with a cup of tea, listening to music. It’s a moment to get in tune with myself before painting. Watching life continue outside - trees rustling - is grounding, meditative. Second best thing to the beach
Blue appears often in your work. What does that color hold for you?
Blue appears often in your work. What does that color hold for you?
LIVING IN COLOR By JALI
JALI: Blue is a recurring color in most of my pieces because it holds a sense of calm that. I often long for. I sometimes use it to tap into feelings of vastness, stillness,and even coldness. It represents something deep and spiritual for me, an emotional undercurrent that runs through much of what I create.
LIVING IN COLORS by JALI
Artist Statement
My work is deeply influenced by themes of identity fragmentation, self-expression, Feminism and Strength. Drawing inspiration from Fauvism and Expressionism, I aim to create a conversation between form and feeling. My pieces reflect the journey of questioning one’s existence, embracing authenticity, and exploring the visual manifestation of inner energy. I am particularly drawn to the complex relationship between the body and energy, capturing moments of motion and transformation. I strive to evoke storytelling that transcends literal interpretation. At the core of my practice is a desire to push both personal and artistic boundaries, creating a space where identity, movement, and emotion converge. Through bold, non-naturalistic colors and expressive forms, my work invites the viewer into an immersive
experience, connecting with the intangible and offering a glimpse into the unseen.
KUBAMBISANA, THE SYNERGY by JALI
Let’s begin with your process. How did painting become a space for you to find mental stillness? And how does that stillness show up in your work?
JALI: Sometimes we go through things and feel emotions we simply can’t put into words. So we internalize, overanalyze, and wreck our brains trying to unpack them. I tend to overthink and all that energy has to go somewhere. Painting became that outlet for me. It’s a way to express what I can’t always say out loud and I think that shows up in my work. I try to utilize color to tell the story of each thought and emotion.
Your work explores identity, emotional ways. How does your heritage (cultural, familial, or ancestral) shape the way you approach the body and memory in your art?
JALI: I think emaSwati, as a people, are largely non-confrontational. Ironically I come from a family where that’s especially true. But “keeping the peace” often comes at the cost of comfort; comfort in your skin, on your land, in your community, and that shows up in the way we speak and navigate through life, from a place of suppression. My intention is to translate that in my work, to create a window into all the emotions that are felt but not expressed, creativity and energies stifled. I find myself creating pieces that hold memory, energy and truth, pieces that echo the internal and mental struggles that often go unspoken.
Your work often explores fragmentation and the body as a vessel. What do you think the body carries that words sometimes can’t express?
Your work often explores fragmentation and the body as a vessel. What do you think the body carries that words sometimes can’t express?
JALI: I think the body carries a wealth of information that words fail to convey. It carries Intuition, connections, trauma and intention.
WE CARRY SO MUCH ENERGY by JALI
WE CARRY SO MUCH ENERGY By JALI
You’ve mentioned being inspired by Simone Leigh and Doris Salcedo. What about their work or approach resonates with your own intentions as an artist?
JALI: Their work gives form to feeling and memory, that’s the best way I can describe it. Leigh’s focus on the interior experience, especially of womanhood and Black identity, and Salcedo’s interest in what remains unspoken after trauma both resonate deeply with me. Works like theirs inspire me to translate internal struggles into visual language and to create art that becomes a vessel for suppressed truths, especially collective or inherited ones.
Your forms live between abstraction and the figurative. How do you know when a piece has found the balance between freedom and structure?
JALI: I take a very intuitive approach to my creative process. I usually begin with a rough idea, which sometimes is just a feeling or image, and let the piece evolve from there. I know a work has found its balance when it feels complete both
emotionally and visually. There’s usually a point where the work feels honest, like it has said what it needs to say. That’s when I stop.
Your piece LOKUSELE, Self Portrait as a Ruin in Repair stands apart in both form and texture. What inspired this shift in material and storytelling?
JALI: With this piece, I wanted to introduce more texture into my work and lean further into abstraction. It was important for me to translate the effects of mental and emotional struggles, along with the gritty, messy, and often uncomfortable process of putting yourself back together. LOKUSELE, Self Portrait as a Ruin in Repair is about that tension: how something fractured can still hold beauty, depth, and meaning. Repair is rarely linear. It’s hard, it’s slow, but it’s necessary. So this piece needed to be a way to hold both the ruin and the resilience in one form.
Looking ahead, you’re expanding into texture and installation. What excites you about this next phase? Any new works coming up?
JALI: What excites me most is the chance to experiment. With art, you get to follow that childlike sense of wonder, and installation allows you to go even further by creating not just a piece of artwork, but an experience. I’m especially drawn to the theme of “Art as Vulnerability”, and I’m looking forward to exploring it deeply.
Right now, I’m working on a new series centering themes of the matriarchy, inspired by a powerful isiXhosa phrase: 'Iyabulela iLali' – The Village is thankful. It made me reflect on lineage, strength, and emotional inheritance, on what is
passed down, carried, and eventually transformed.
bottom of page