Nozuko Madokwe was born in 1983. She grew up in the Eastern Cape, South Africa and various parts of the country. She currently lives and works in Cape Town.
In her paintings, constructed through natural pigments, Nozuko Madokwe revels in the earth (umhlaba in isiXhosa) as an expressive visual form itself. Her abstract compositions are the result of multiple layerings over the surface of the canvas. They may suggest figures, landscapes or gestural marks, but edge consistently towards an abstraction rooted in organic forms. Her practice, together with her regard for indigenous knowledge around natural earth-mediums, reflects the ubiquity of umhlaba and the corresponding symbolic prevalence contained in geographic environments.