Alternative Black Girls Disrupting our Timelines

Instagram can be quite an interesting space between the drama of fake online stores scamming unsuspecting clients and keeping up with the filtered lives of the rich and famous.

If you’re like me and appreciate the peculiar over the popular, it can be a place of engaging content and thought-provoking artistry.

But for the artists who give us the content we signed up for, is it all that?

“Social media has made it possible for me to meet other artists who I have been fortunate enough to collaborate with. But it can also be extremely toxic to my mental health and my creative process. It has often made me feel like I’m not doing enough and that everything I post must be perfect.

“Due to these pressures, I often try to disrupt these notions and, in a way, these acts of rebellion have led me to other forms of expression,” said Yonela Makoba whose art explores Tangerine Water, a character that she defines as imagery with a feeling that belongs to the heavenly waters representing an empowered and liberated version of herself.

Natalie Paneng, who creates an alternative universe for followers by exploring her various personas, said her experience has been different.

“I think my work is playful and offers an interesting perspective. I create from a personal context and I think there is very little space to offend anyone.

“I haven’t had engagements that are negative but I am also very aware of the [online] platforms and the possibilities of things like that happening,” Paneng said.

Yes to more black joy

As an avid follower of both Makoba and Paneng, it’s refreshing to come across black women artists who create alternative imagery that doesn’t immediately fall into the category of black pain.

It’s almost as though there’s an expectation for all black artists to create the kind of ‘deep content’ that only depicts pain, a responsibility that’s never bestowed on their white counterparts who can easily create carefree art because they find it beautiful.

“I do not want to prescribe anything to my community, mine is not to convince people what to feel, mine is to birth something and allow it to speak for itself,” Paneng added.

Method to the madness

Paneng uses her platforms to create an alternative universe for followers which in turn can inspire others to tap into their own imagination. “I’ve been creating characters and personas since I was in primary school.

“The internet has allowed me to archive some of my personas,” she said.

The most known persona is Nice. She is an expert on aesthetics, colour and cute girl philosophy. There’s Silly Milly who is very interested in silk pyjamas and playing sleepy time Lofi music and Juice Box Judy, who is a painter, wishes she was married to Jean-Michel Basquiat. “I allow my online audience to engage with them by sharing these personas through mini series and glimpses of these girls who live with and inside me once in a while,” she enthused.

Makoba is preparing for her solo exhibition in February next year at the new Form building at the Orms Cape Town School of Photography as part of the Orms Circle residency programme. Her exhibition will be an introduction to “Tangerine’s world”, the becoming of Tangerine as well as a contribution to the current theorisation, critiquing and engaging discussions around decolonisation and #Fallism or #FeesMustFall.

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