Matty Monethi

Matty Monethi (b. 1996) is a Lesotho-born, Ethiopian-raised, South African-based artist working with painting, printmaking and text. She explores migration and memory through her work, often drawing on personal memories and experiences as well as family photographs to scrutinises her connections with her adopted countries, cultures, and close relationships. Her evocative representational works address evolving selfhood, the depiction of the past, and the relationship between personal archives and nostalgia.

Matty Monethi (b. 1996) was born in Maseru, Lesotho and grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Monethi completed her Diploma in Fine Art at the Ruth Prowse School of Art in Cape Town in 2016, and in 2017 embarked on a semester abroad at the University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom, where she specialised in printmaking. In 2020, Monethi completed a BA in Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg, where she is currently based. Monethi uses painting, printmaking, and text to explore the personal dimensions of migration and memory. With a keen sense of her own place in broader historical contexts in Africa, she scrutinises her connections with her adopted countries, cultures, and close relationships. Monethi draws on memories of her own experiences, as well as family photographs from her childhood, to create emblematic pictorial scenes punctuated by empty space and text. Her evocative representational works address evolving selfhood, the depiction of the past, and the relationship between personal archives and nostalgia. Matty Monethi began collaborating with David Krut Projects and the David Krut Workshop in April 2022, when she spent a couple of weeks on a short residency creating unique works on paper with printer Sbongiseni Khulu. This residency was part of a larger collaboration project with FORMS Gallery and the founder Anthea Buys, culminating in a 3-person show at David Krut Gallery along with Khotso Motsoeneng and Adrian Fortuin, titled Parallel Process.