Neo Image Matloga was born in 1993 in Mamaila, a small town in Limpopo province, South Africa. He currently lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where he recently completed a two-year residency at De Ateliers.

Matloga works with drawing, painting and collage to make large-scale mixed media pieces on paper or canvas, depicting domestic scenes which capture memories of daily life during the artist’s childhood. These monochromatic works play with surrealism and perspective, pushing light, shadow and line to the edge of abstraction. The artist’s practice is a meditation on the healing properties of family and home, showing fragments of happiness and togetherness in the midst of struggle, and the new hope which was emerging at the time – hope for a democratic future after the end of Apartheid.

Solo projects include Good Morning Midnight, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2018); Molatelo, SCOPE Art Fair, New York, NY, USA (2017); and Moo re tswang gona, FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa (2016).

Selected group exhibitions include Tell Freedom: 15 South African Artists, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands (2018); ‘Let’s see, where were we? In the pit of despair.’, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2017); Post Its, Constitutional Court, Johannesburg, South Africa (2016); South African Voices, Gallery van Dorst, Wassenaar, Netherlands (2016); Considering Genius, Res Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2016); New Voices IV, Lizamore and Associates Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2015); Time Line, Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa (2015); and South African New Voices, Washington Printmakers Gallery, Washington, DC, USA (2014).

Before participating in the De Ateliers residency in Amsterdam from 2016 to 2018, Matloga completed a residency at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015.

In 2018 Matloga won the Royal Award for Modern Painting in the Netherlands.