Tides of Being: Sungi Mlengeya

Water is boundless. It echoes continuity and the vastness of existence. It distorts, reflects, and reveals. In Tides of Being, Sungi Mlengeya explores the fluid relationship between body and water-between expanse and closeness, stillness and motion.

This exhibition marks a pivotal moment in Sungi's practice, coinciding with the publication of her first monograph. It is an expansion beyond the canvas-a testament to an ongoing journey of creation, reflection, and honoring those who inspire her work.

For years, bodies-predominantly women-have been central to the artist's visual language, emerging against vast white spaces that evoke a world of infinite possibility. In this new body of work, water becomes a crucial element. It embraces and reshapes the figures it touches, offering a space for transformation, surrender, and renewal. The women in these paintings-friends, family, and muses-are both grounded and weightless, their forms shifting between clarity and abstraction. Some command attention with their gaze, others drift into meditative solitude, their gestures mirroring the natural rhythms of waves and currents.

There is dance here-slow, suspended, and effortless. Water amplifies movement, elongates limbs, and blurs boundaries, creating a world where bodies and elements merge. It is a celebration of presence, an affirmation of existence, and a plunge into the profound.

At its core, Tides of Being invites the viewer to join in the  search for meaning through space-a poetic exploration of how we exist in relation to our environments, to one another, and the fleeting eternal rythms we create.

Curated by Daudi Karungi

The exhibition takes place at 311 East Broadway (NADA Exhibition Space).