South African Collage Artist, Lunga Ntila, Explores Awareness & The Human Experience.

There is a vast world of talented, amazing artists in Africa, and then there is South Africa's Lunga Ntila. She might not be the first person to explore her kind of art, but Ntila is doing something new. The self-trained expressive visual artist started creating collages at 20, and her growth and depth over the years have been both impressive and stunning.

Exploring the intricacies of life and the human experience through evocative and intentionally distorted representations, Ntila's approach to art is exceptional and daring. The results are twisted, manipulated, displaced, exaggerated and unique pieces of imagery. Her fast-paced growth as an artist has earned her features on Mail & Guardian, Artthrob, Afropunk, and an exhibition at the Blank.

Driven by passion and a love for storytelling, and affirming that she's not the best at writing, Ntila had to channel her artistic energy into creating photographic collages. Her first work was inspired by some significant events in her life and at the time, she had no idea that there was a name for her kind of craft.

Through her works, Ntila constantly explores the subjects of awareness and identity. She describes it as "raising awareness to promote dialogues about issues that affect our society." There is that and then there is the strong and recurring exploration of love, beauty, and the feminine form, with vivid themes of sexuality and womanhood. She self-identifies as a feminist and this informs the conceptualization in her art.

Though, Lunga does not consider her art a coming of age story. This is because her collages are mostly spontaneous; based on current events and experiences. For the same reason, she says that she doesn't have a practical creative process. Her art is personal, impulsive, and unrehearsed. This makes them even more interesting; that she can conjure up such beautiful, meaningful, and unique pieces with no premeditation. In her words, Ntila's art is "Afrocentric, distinctive, attentive and rara avis."

For Ntila, the most rewarding part of being a female creative is her distinctive ability to use her talent to communicate. She also admits that sometimes it can be challenging especially when her work is overlooked or undervalued.

Besides creating awareness through her works, Lunga volunteers and participates in community building services.

She plans on transitioning from being a part-time artist to a full-time artist as well as holding a solo exhibition in the near future.