Zsudayka Nzinga

Zsudayka Nzinga is an acrylic artist from Denver, CO. She recently relocated to Washington,

DC to pursue her career as an artist. She started out as an oil portrait painter doing photo

realism and expressionist portraits before moving into abstract expressionist portraits in acrylic.

Her work is largely composed of messages regarding the experience of the black woman in

america. Its aim is to start creating pieces that are definitive around the culture of “black”

America as a tribe of new American African people.

Zsudayka Nzinga’s work contains a lot of patterns and symbolism. The patterns are inspired by

textile fabrics, Ankara and other culture fabric patterns and stained glass. There are often

reoccurring images. You might see piano keys which symbolize every person playing their part

in life, self-manifestation. You might see butterflies which are about change and growth for the

artist. She uses stained glass styled line work to communicate things are always in a state of

change, coming together or moving apart but all are pieces that tell a story.

Nzinga began her career as an artist in Denver, CO. She painted abstract and realism portraits

and ran an art gallery. She also created art programming for non profits and private and charter

schools, ran a black arts festival and a gallery boutique. She made a name for herself as a

teenager on the spoken word poetry scene and travelled the country performing her written

work with her art on the cover. While traveling Nzinga felt more and more inspired to create

images, particularly the missing story of the black woman. “I felt that when I was telling a story

in a poem, people had to have read what I read, seen what I’ve seen to sometimes get the

deeper purpose of my work. When I paint my story, a person can look at it and come to their

own conclusions in their own time. I can really hit them hard but not have to bear the

responsibility of having TOLD them.”

Nzinga travelled to Atlanta and then moved to DC in 2012. She started learning to paint in

acrylic 3 years ago because she was painting live and travelling a lot and had ideas she wanted

to be able to complete faster and brighter. The transition has made her focus more on line work

in her paintings. Each line is a map that she wants the eye to travel. She has debuted a line of

hand painted purses and fashion and shown her work all over the east coast.