My work seeks to beautify and amplify what society overlooks. I collect industrial and domestic waste — remnants of excess — and transform them into functional objects that unite aesthetics and sustainability. I call these found materials “minorities” because of the conditions in which I encounter them: displaced, undervalued, unseen. In them, I recognize a parallel to the lived experience of African bodies — often subjected to bias, erasure, and structural exclusion. My figurative portraiture does not ask for inclusion. It asserts presence. It projects a totality — what it means to exist without fear, without apology, without the burden of second-class narratives. I render Black bodies as immortal, as conduits confronting entrenched prejudices and biases. Whether through furniture, textile, photography, or painting, each work carries a thread of reclamation, amplification, and representation. Transformation is not just material — it is ideological. The process is healing. The act is resistance. The outcome is beauty & renewal. 

SSB (Studio Sherman Baloyi) is the creative studio of multidisciplinary artist Sherman Baloyi. Born in 1983, Baloyi studied Commercial Design at the Institute of Art and Design, now part of Bulawayo Polytechnic College in Zimbabwe.

His practice spans fine art, graphic design, and, more recently, product design. Since the launch of his inaugural exhibition, Hobo, in 2022, he has steadily built momentum, expanding his visual language across mediums and material investigations.

Rooted in the vast material and cultural heritage of his people, Baloyi’s work explores belonging, reclamation, and collective consciousness. Through his practice, he seeks to cultivate deeper awareness of shared truths and the interconnected sources that shape our existence.