Wonderland by Nontsikelelo Veleko at the SANG

Trio 2007 - Pigment inks on cotton rag paper

Her lens-based work achieved wide recognition with an early project entitled www.notblackenough.lolo, which explored South African perceptions of mixed heritage, using clothes as critical props to deliberately challenge assumptions of identity based on appearances and historical background. She has also documented some of the edgier urban fashions in downtown Johannesburg, naming one of her projects Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder. She explains that, "I look at fashion and how it creates identity, because fashion plays with identity".

Veleko was born in 1977 in Bodibe in the North West Province, but grew up in Cape Town. She studied graphic design at the Cape Technikon, and then photography at the Market Photography Workshop, Johannesburg, between 1999 and 2004.