Sungi Mlengeya was born in 1991 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is a self-taught artist who works primarily in the acrylic medium on canvas creating paintings that are free, minimalist and with a curious use of negative space. She is one whose figurative portraiture is a commemoration of women who surround her. She hopes to show her subjects and audience the freedom and power they possess, by capturing them in an indomitable light and suspending them in infinite spaces filled with possibilities.
Mlengeya has developed an unmistakable personal style through her paintings, receiving critical acclaim in her still young but profound career as an artist and painter. Her minimalist paintings depict Black women on a white background, the women’s torsos are left undefined and blank by the artist, just as the white background of her canvas is left untouched. The visible body parts engage in a conversation with the empty space around them, letting their bodies to be free of definition and judgment as well as definite shape, yet exhibiting stances that strongly convey empowerment and bravery.
Image courtesy of the artist and Artskop
In 2020, Sungi was honoured in Apollo 40 Under 40 Africa, a selection the most inspirational young people in the African art world; and in 2022 graced the Johnnie Walker and Trace Africa Top 30 list of leading creatives in the continent.
Sungi’s work has been collected extensively and shown widely. The artist’s recent solo exhibition in Austria Don’t Try, Don’t Not Try with the B.LA Art Foundation in Vienna partly benefited Women without Borders whose headquarters are also in the city. (Un)Choreographed, another solo exhibition that took off in June 2022 marked the reopening of the home of London’s Africa Centre in Southwark. In 2021, the artist presented a solo booth at Art Basel Miami Beach titled Unsettled Minds following her debut solo exhibition Just Disruptions at Afriart Gallery in Kampala earlier that year. Another solo project was a booth at Investec Cape Town Art Fair’s SOLO section in 2020.
Image courtesy of the artist and Artskop
The artist was part of A Force to Be Reckoned with by UN Women in 2021, an art exhibit and auction benefiting black women across the world. Other group exhibitions include museum show When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting at the Zeitz MOCCA in Capetown 2022-, Black Voices: Friend of My Mind Ross-Sutton Gallery, The Medium is the Message Unit London, Drawn Together Unit London, 1-54 Highlights Christie’s London 2020, Playing to the Gallery and Surfaces II: Gender Identity Rebellion Afriart Gallery, 1-54 Art Fair 2020 London and New York, and Latitudes Art Fair 2019 in Johannesburg.
Image courtesy of the artist and Artskop
