Born and raised in Eswatini and entirely self-taught, Nkosinathi Tembe’s work is an active and on-going introspection of his ever-changing psychological landscape. Tembe’s preferred media are graphite and ink, but he does occasionally dabble with watercolour. His work can be defined as figurative illustration, with undertones of surrealism and abstract symbolism. A self-confessed, perpetual student of all things art, he is regularly stumbling upon new ways to artistically express himself, all in a bid to find connections between the individual and their respective socio-political-cultural environments. In times when he cannot express himself through words and/or action, he uses pencil and paper in their place. Having studied psychology, he understands that emotions and thoughts need to be expressed in a healthy and safe space, but often times, the external world feels unsafe, uncertain and unstable. Then, the blank paper or canvas can always serve as a home away from home; a platform where expression is a prerequisite, and not a source of uncertainty. Although much of his inspiration is drawn from the external world, he aims to highlight the importance of perception and expression when it comes to the manner in which external stimuli affect the internal mechanisms that define us as individuals. Tembe’s works explore the duality of existence-the good, the bad; the beautiful, the ugly; the spoken, and the unspoken. All these concepts are an amalgamation of personal experiences- the proximal aspects of the self- converging with the distal aspects of being. His art serves as a form of self-therapy, and a bridge that connects him to anyone and everyone that can relate across all cultures and backgrounds, because after all, we differ on the surface but at the core of everything, we are so similar.