Joyce Ntobe

Artist biography:

In 1992, Beezy Bailey invented Joyce Ntobe, his alter ego, in response to an overly-politically correct South African art scene.

Joyce's work represents a very small percentage of Beezy's output, yet nonetheless exists as his alter ego - an opposite character to Beezy - as a way of exploring the complexities of issues of race and gender in contemporary South Africa.

Joyce's work has made a statement against inverted racism, which is offensive to white and black artists in South Africa. Joyce has also opened the door to explore artistic avenues which Beezy would not normally. For instance, in 1997, she exhibited an installation of resin mother-of-earth figures containing objects such as lipsticks and tubes of hair-straightener. Exploring life as a feminist black woman, Beezy, whose work is essentially based in the painterly expressionist tradition would never normally have done a conceptual feminist installation.

This will be the first time Joyce Ntobe has exhibited work outside of South Africa. A series of paintings including Church in Khayelitsha were inspired by artists who work from photographs such as Gerhard Richter and South Africa's Walter Meyer.