Tuli Mekondjo
b. 1982, Angola
Tuli Mekondjo (b. 1982) is a self-taught Namibian artist, based in Windhoek, Namibia. Born in Angola to Namibian parents who joined SWAPO in exile, she spent her childhood in refugee camps in Angola and Zambia during the Namibian War of Independence. Her practice encompasses mixed media and embroidered painting, performance, collage, and installation, working with natural silks, embroidery, photo-transfer, soil, paint, resin, and mahangu — a millet grain and food staple in northern Namibia. Her works engage with colonial photographic archives, reclaiming imagery of indigenous Namibians from multiple ethnic groups during both the German colonial period and South African occupation, transforming those images into an homage to the figures depicted, most often women.
Mekondjo's practice is shaped by the intersection of personal and collective displacement. The presence of female ancestors — her mother, her grandmother, and the chain of women stretching back through Namibian history — is central to both her two-dimensional works and her performance practice. Images of wombs and foetuses embroidered onto the surface of the works connect the beginning of life to the soil and to intergenerational cycles of trauma and continuity. Sensitive explorations of history and ancestry allow her to address, question, and heal parts of a violent past, weaving personal and collective trauma with beauty, nature, and optimism.
Mekondjo has exhibited widely, including solo presentations at Hales Gallery in New York and at Guns & Rain in Johannesburg, and at international art fairs including 1:54 London, Art Basel Miami, Frieze London, and EXPO Chicago. Institutional exhibitions have taken place at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York, the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and the Musée d'art et d'histoire Paul Éluard in Saint-Denis, among others. She is the recipient of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (2022) and the Villa Romana Fellowship (2024). She is represented by Hales Gallery and Guns & Rain.
