Artist Biographies
Amy Ayanda Lester (b.1992) is an artist and musician based in Cape Town. Amy holds an Honours degree in Painting from The Michaelis School of Fine Art at The University of Cape Town.
Amy’s work draws on her family’s experience of connection to the land, and the grief of being forcibly removed from their flower farm in Constantia due to the Group Areas Act of 1955. Her art engages themes of memory and loss that contradict the striking natural beauty of her subject, and this contradiction reverberates throughout her vibrant abstract pieces. Her work has featured in numerous publications.
She has exhibited widely in both group and solo exhibitions, including at Zeitz MOCAA, the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, and David Krut Projects.
Curators’ Statement
Balekane Legoabe (b. 1995) lives and works in Cape Town. She holds a BA in visual communication, specialising in illustration, and a BA in film arts, specialising in motion design.
Balekane’s practice explores the ways in which the human experience mirrors the processes of nature, and vice versa; drawing inspiration from ancient rock art and cave paintings, African, Eastern and Western mythology, as well as language, metaphor, ritual and family.
Last year she had her first solo exhibition in Cape Town at EBONY/CURATED. She has also participated in the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, the Latitudes Art Fair, and the Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg.
We knew we wanted to work with Balekane Legoabe and Amy Ayanda Lester from the moment we started planning this exhibition - in fact for many months beforehand. We had no idea that the exhibition would end up being as exquisite as it is, and we want to thank both artists for their amazing work - of course! - but also their open-hearted approach to artistic collaboration.
The collaborative prints are, for us as curators, the focal point of this exhibition. Suggested by Balekane in our first joint meeting, Amy made the idea immediately real by suggesting they work with monotype prints. Both artists spent time together choosing a colour palette they wanted to explore. They worked on the monotype plate, painting individually on one side and then swapping over, so that each of them had an equal hand in the final print. You can also see handwork on each work: after it had been printed, both of them worked into it with pencil crayon and graphite. You can see their distinct mark making, but there are also places where you genuinely cannot tell whose work is whose.
Both artists weave together threads of the physical world with a more abstract approach, something that intrigued us. For Balekane, the spirit world is her guide; while Amy is led by a path of personal narratives, fed from memory and imagination. There is a subtle intimacy in their work, we are invited into their inner thoughts and belief systems. The smaller scale of the works in this exhibition - a conscious decision we all made together - fosters closeness, creating a space for reflection in a world where everyone seems to be shouting.
A constant theme in both artists’ work is a deep connection to the land, a subject which is woven throughout the exhibition. Balekane explores the cycles of nature and their parallels to human experience, drawing from mythology, ritual, and ancient art to uncover layers of identity and spirituality. Amy’s work celebrates the local landscape while grappling with the grief of displacement, weaving themes of memory, loss, and belonging through her evocative depictions of Cape Town’s flora and vistas.
These small, intimate works draw the viewer closer, so we can experience the magic of the artists’ ideas. Rather than be created for awe and drama, they are instead a place of calm and warmth. Just as our world grows more fractured, Balekane and Amy celebrate the quiet power of connection and collaboration. The threads of the physical and spiritual, the real and imagined, are woven together, and connected somewhere out there in a shared imagination.
Liezel Strauss and Kitty Dinshaw, February 2025