Artist Bio:
Zsudayka Nzinga is a multi-disciplinary fine artist, curator and arts educator from Aurora, CO living in Washington, DC. She considers her work cultural anthropology, largely focusing on mixed media portraiture and interior design installations that reflect American culture. Her pieces explore mixing patterns and textures to create collages using acrylic, oil, decorative and hand dyed paper, fabric, thread, linocut stamp and ink on canvas. She also makes metal jewelry and builds and reupholsters found furniture. Nzinga started out as a spoken word artist and performer. While attending Hampton University and Metropolitan State College of Denver she pursued a journalism degree and self-published 3 books of her work. She spent several years touring the country performing, hosting and curating spoken word and special arts events before focusing on her own art. She has shown her work and performed in galleries and museums all over the country and been featured internationally in blogs and reviews. She has curated multiple exhibitions, received a curatorial grant with the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities. She served on the board for Freedom School Arts and Entrepreneurship, served as Vice President of Black Artists of DC and participates with the exhibition committee Women’s Caucus for Art DC.
She is a proud mother of 3 children and wife to artist, James Terrell with whom she runs their family business selling and exhibiting their art, managing their merchandise line, and assisting teachers and homeschool families with arts integrated education.
Artist Statement:
I am a multi-disciplinary mixed media artist, educator and curator. I am a collage artist with an interest in materiality of paper, fabric and associated textiles. My practice includes graphic design, sewing, dying techniques and print making alongside acrylic painting. I enjoy the act of taking things apart and finding the new ways they come together to tell a story. My design aesthetic leans into maximalism and finding vibration between the colors and patterns of fabric and paper used in my collages. I have an interest in depicting interior design and the ways that homes are reflected throughout history to communicate many things.
Many of my pieces are rooted in a research practice. I am an avid fan of American history and lean into depicting mostly women in the Black American experience. My research functions as the back narrative for the images I choose to depict and the small details that may be hidden within. I consider my work cultural social anthropology, as I am documenting from within the community that I am studying to communicate the lived experience of American Descendants of the system of slavery.
I am a self-taught artist. I started out sewing with my mother in elementary school. My paintings use acrylic, fabric, vinyl, relief print, ink, hand dyed paper and fabric, decorative paper, oil bars, sewing, marbling, tie dying, batik dying, weaving, hand and machine cutting, graphic design and drawing.
