The figures that populate these works appear strained, fragmented, or suspended in uneasy states of becoming. They speak to isolation but also persistence. There is an urgency in their presence, a refusal to disappear. Ngobeni’s practice during this time was less about refinement and more about necessity. To make was to remain alive. Each drawing functioned as proof of existence, a daily act of choosing to stay.
Blesing Ngobeni’s works from 2016 and 2017 emerge from a period marked by profound personal struggle, vulnerability, and survival. Created at a time when the artist was navigating deep psychological and emotional turmoil, these early works are not simply aesthetic expressions but acts of endurance. They bear witness to a young artist wrestling with displacement, instability, and the quiet weight of existing on the margins, while searching for meaning and self worth in a world that offered little certainty.
Drawing became a form of refuge and resistance. In moments where language failed and structure collapsed, art became Ngobeni’s anchor. Through obsessive mark making, layered surfaces, and raw figuration, he constructed a visual language that allowed him to process pain without needing to resolve it. These works do not offer neat narratives or resolutions. Instead, they sit honestly within confusion, repetition, and emotional excess, reflecting the lived reality of survival rather than the fantasy of recovery.