Ntombi Yom Xhosa [Xhosa Girl]

Fani’s work is, in part, a requiem for his father, the self-taught artist who would draw sketches of television characters and perpetually redecorate their home. Since his father’s death, Fani’s clay is heavier; it bears the smell of smoke, pit-fired in the alleyway outside the studio. Fani hand-coils his pieces, working intuitively, drawing forms from the bodies of trees, the rivers and the human beings who make lives from the earth.