Boemo Diale (b. 2000 - Johannesburg, RSA ) is a multi-disciplinary artist who grew up navigating complex racial and socio-political post apartheid structures in Rustenburg, Mafikeng and in the suburbs of Johannesburg. As an exploration of identity, generational trauma, dreams and manifestations, the artist’s practice is both highly personal and speaks to the broader cultural inheritance of South African women.

Diale’s visual narration takes on a dream-like articulation, her figures often appear caught within the confines of a vessel or pushed up against the borders of her painted surface. Voluptuous obsidian bodies and more traditional feminine forms take turns resisting against and then complying with the limitations of her iridescent primordial environments. Tropical silhouettes and vivid graffitied universes merge with Diale’s playful, bright and layered use of paint, however beyond the lighthearted immediacy of her work lies a fierce questioning of her sense of place and ability to effect change through her art.

Diale’s work on film and on canvas is strongly impacted by her desire to connect with her maternal lineage and tell the inter-generational story of African women. Diale is able to introduce representations from her personal family archive into the whimsical interior scenes, creating a type of push-and-pull between the artist’s reality and her envisaged world.

Curriculum Vitae