Zandile Tshabalala's paintings tell stories of lightness and self-confidence – of women like her in the 2020s: young and black. Her figures look at us with an open and confident gaze. The South African artist belongs to a new generation that has discovered and reinterpreted figurative painting as an opportunity of human expression for themselves. Based on her own self-determination, she creates self-images of women who celebrate their black identity and deviate from the usual narrative about black women. Tshabalala's characters are colourful, powerful interpretations of her everyday reality. She frequently contrasts deliberately placed primary colours with the deep black, flat, hardly developed faces of the figures and testify to a rarely seen, spontaneous, free and refreshing approach to colour.