KEABETSWE SEEMA
(b.1999, Johannesburg, South Africa)

Keabetswe Seema explores themes of Afro Surrealism, Afrofuturism and the politics of the black female body through monotype printmaking, photography, collage, and sound installation. She interrogates the agentic becoming of the black female figure, by lending her practice to fantasy and augmented worlds where infinite modes of being write their own story. Her work reveals an assembly of layered processes that centre around joining fragments to a new type of whole.

Seema sources materials from a mixture of origins- family archives, newspaper clippings, and magazine cut-outs are decontextualised through the surgical practice of cutting, tearing, moving and mending. The consistent process of destruction and reconstruction of images of the black female body and her environment is aimed at destroying a set of hierarchies. Here the body is constantly changing. Seema inserts her own body into fantasy worlds where landscapes ooze absurdity and playfulness, revealing  the infinite possibilities of multiple selves.

The repetition of Seema’s body, her limbs or parts of her face, illustrates the process of navigating confrontational spaces. The body as invested  in its own theorisation unveils the unexpected ways of looking towards new worlds where the black female figure channels multiple representations of selfhood, femininity, sexuality, spirituality and beauty.

Seema considers the fragmented racialised and gendered self in history and contemporary society, by interrogating the effect of Apartheid and colonisation through her interpersonal relationships with her mother and grandmother. Seema investigates the complexity of the black female experience in South Africa through the stories of the women that came before her. Through imagery of female family members, Seema unveils fragments of the past, full of contradictions, guiding the viewer towards a more nuanced understanding of the future.

The beings depicted in her artworks are multifaceted and fluid, inviting the viewer to enter into a world of mystery and ambiguity, and serving as vessels for a renaissance of black femininity.

Seema began her studies at the University of Pretoria in Political Science, later transitioning to a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Seema won the Blessing Ngobeni Art Prize in 2024. Keabetswe Seema was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa.