Blessing Ngobeni has made the corruption, incompetence and duplicity of South Africa’s current ruling elite the subjects of his art. He tackles the disconcerting consequences of betraying democratic ideals, the failure to learn from historical tragedies, and the expanding gap between the rich and poor. This critique is informed by Ngobeni’s own experience, the hardships and challenges he had to confront as a child and adolescent. As a result of his exceptional work and dedication to his practice, Ngobeni received the highly prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts in 2020. 

Ngobeni is known for his distinctive style, created with layers of acrylic washes over exaggerated collaged figures, accompanied by unapologetic titles such as ‘Democracy is a Dust Bin’, or ‘A Study of Corruption’. He uses his expressionist paintings not only to overtly critique the current status quo, but to ask uncomfortable questions about the African’s experience of the world. Ngobeni confronts his own experiences and challenges them in the often nightmarishly absurd and violent scenes of his paintings. These scenes, though brutal and honest, are also a display of the artist’s visual sensitivities to line, image and the power of colour. 

In recent bodies of work, Ngobeni engages with the idea of a haunting past – specifically with regards to African history, in a scathing condemnation of the continent’s current political and socio-economic status as a result of its colonial legacy. This engagement does not only lie in the concepts behind his art, but in his process of making, of carefully and laboriously constructing artworks from extant imagery as well as his own imagination. His distorted figures are often depicted with bulging bellies heavy with collected collage pieces sourced from local and international press, glossy magazines and social media. Ngobeni introduces other materials to his work; fur, cotton wool, gift wrap and textiles expand the artist’s storytelling palette, allowing him to delve into different narratives and visual metaphors. 

For Ngobeni the past, or history, never leaves us; it defines our everyday lives.

In addition to the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, Ngobeni is the recipient of several awards, including the Reinhold Cassirer Art Award by Nadine Gordimer (2012), and the Arts & Culture Trust Young Professional ImpACT award (2013). He is a 2024 Finalist in the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize. His work was also included in the Phaidon publication, 'Vitamin P3: New Perspectives in Painting' (2016).