In this new body of work, Zantsi follows his grandfather’s directive to observe the world from a different vantage point, that of the ants. Through experimentation and research, he translates this saying into a visual language while remaining careful not to be overly literal.

“So, as a figurative painter, I wanted to merge the two: the landscape and the figurative.”

The result is a series of works that feel discovered rather than composed. Zantsi’s process begins with imagining terrain, gathering a figurative vocabulary of earth, light, and shadow. From these imaginings, he builds paintings that are less about a specific landscape and more about the sensation of being close to the ground, of seeing the world from below.

Songezo Zantsi (b. 1991, Cape Town) is a painter. He grew up with his grandparents in Alice, a historically significant town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, and currently lives and works in Cape Town. In 2022, Zantsi presented his first solo exhibition, IInkumbulo, and in 2024 his second, Iyabulela Ilali, at Vela Projects. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town (2021) and Youngblood Gallery, Cape Town (2022).