Mary Sibande was born in Barberton, South Africa.

In 2004 she received a Diploma in Fine Arts from Witwatersrand Technikon, and in 2007 obtained a B-Tech degree from the University of Johannesburg.

Sibande’s career as an artist came under the spotlight with the opening of Long Live the Dead Queen  at Gallery MOMO in Johannesburg, South Africa  (2009), where she introduced Sophie, a life-size sculpted avatar, modelled in the artist’s own image.

Adorned in elaborate Victorian dress, Sibande makes reference to the uniform typically worn by domestic workers in South Africa.

Hers is a celebration of the hard work, strength, love, hope, and imagination that carried so many black South African women – her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother included – through apartheid South Africa, a testament to the power of the imagination as a way through which one is able to master their own narrative, despite the odds.