Najma Williams
Najma Williams is a fourth
year BA Fine Arts student at the University of Pretoria. She was born in Free
State and currently resides in Pretoria. She specializes in installation
sculpture, specifically in the medium of hair and her work is based on her experiences
as a black woman from a biracial ethnic background. Her overview of hair as an
art medium stems from her experiences with strangers who question her hair
being real because it is not of an expected “African Texture”.
Her visual practice is an
overview of the fascination with hair and how it defines us. The process of her
work entails braiding ordinary objects such as clothing hangers, wired shapes
and baskets with synthetic hair, which she transforms to unfamiliar objects
through different braiding styles. Hair is not significant enough to cause
separation between people; therefore she uses synthetic hair to denote the
separation caused by her hair texture in her own community.
