I really derive these artworks from what I have always felt is necessary for me to engage with, and that is often difficult subject matter.

Artist Gabrielle Goliath addresses difficult subject matter: issues of trauma, and gendered and sexualised violence in her work. She uses video, live performance and photography, with a sensitive, subject-centred approach.

In her latest work This song is for… Goliath re-performs popular versions of the dedication song, in collaboration with a group of women, queer-led musical ensembles and survivors of rape. Each is performed in a style that is of personal significance to the performers.
Goliath said that her own lived experience has a strong bearing on her work.

She steers clear of perpetuating a victim culture and victimisation. “It is a kind of politics relationality: how art can potentially draw communities together to engage with the subject matter, whether they’ve been touched by it or not, so if anything, it is highly personal and highly subjective.”
Goliath is a PhD candidate at the institute for creative arts at the University of Cape Town. She first studied fashion design at the University of Witwatersrand’s school of arts, during which time, she says, her fashion became increasingly more unwearable, as she became more interested in form and sculpture.

She is the recipient of several awards including the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize (Bamako Biennale), and Standard Bank Young Artist Award (2019) and most recently the Future Generation Art Prize 2019.

Goliath has exhibited globally, most recently in the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev; Conversations in Gondwana, São Paulo Cultural Center, São Paulo; Kubatana – An Exhibition with Contemporary African Artists, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway; Verbo Performance Art Festival, São Paulo, and the Palais de Tokyo’s Do Disturb Festival, Paris.
— Rumana Akoob

Instagram: @gabriellegoliath