Dathini Mzayiya was born in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa in 1979. After studying advertising and marketing at the Advertising College of South Africa, Cape Town, in 1999, he enrolled at the Peninsula Technikon (Pentech), Bellville, Cape Town, in 2000, where studied graphic design and advertising. He then registered for the Advanced Programme in Visual Arts at the Community Arts Project (CAP), Cape Town, in 2001. At CAP, he was taught drawing and painting by Joseph Gaylard and Sarah Schneckloth. Since then, he has shown his work, not only in South Africa, but in various parts of the world, notably Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Ethiopia. He has also participated in international projects, including a project for the South African Human Rights Media Centre in Liberia and Kenya, where he worked with survivors of torture and war. Using oil paint and charcoal, Mzayiya’s critical art depicts the socio-political landscape of the postapartheid, with particular focuses on racialised structural violence and the plight of the poor and downtrodden. His expressive paintings and drawings generally reflect disillusionment with a contemporary South Africa described by some as the ‘rainbow nation’, and his subjects range from bosses, landlords, the police and security guards to the homeless, beggars and job seekers.