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.