Tuli Mekondjo at Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery

Tuli Mekondjo, Oudjuu wo vanhu voshilongo/ The burden of the people of this land, 2022 is on view in Speaking in Pairs at Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery, New York, NY, USA through 19 April 2026.

 

Speaking in Pairs looks at the aesthetic, material, social, and political layers that portraits offer—revealing how the people they portray, their makers and viewers, and the changing world they exist in connect and conflict in shifting cycles over time.

 

Known for her mixed media and embroidered paintings, Mekondjo’s rigorous practice is a pursuit to connect with and honor her Namibian heritage. Her practice in both mixed media and performance navigates feelings of displacement, having spent her childhood in refugee camps of Angola and Zambia during the Namibian War of Independence. Sensitive explorations of history and ancestry allow Mekondjo to address, question, and heal parts of this past, deftly weaving personal and collective trauma with beauty, nature and optimism.