To dub Mbali Tshabalala a feminist is to simplify the issue. For her, black womanhood is both hammer and anvil, an inspirational weapon and an archetypal trope. As a printmaker and painter, Tshabalala straddles mediums and objectives.
Attuned to the appeal of stylised black iconography, she is also alert to the fact that art – as a representational system – cannot wholly grasp the rich complexity of Black Life. Neither its spiritual dimension, familial culture of interdependency, embodied in the culture of Ubuntu, or the rights of women therein.