Tschabalala Self

Tschabalala Self builds her figures the way a tailor builds a coat — pieced from canvas, fabric, paint, and found cloth, stitched and layered until the surface holds its own weight.

Her subjects move through bodegas, salons, kitchens, and the corners of the city where the body is most itself. The work is at once tender and exacting; the gestures are observed rather than imagined.

She lives and works in New York and exhibits internationally — but the centre of gravity is the studio, where the figures keep arriving.