"[About Yayoi Kusama:] Classifying her work as 'art brut' is simplistic and unfair. For me she represents the history of womankind. A sexually violated, politically annihilated, socially ignored and emotionally deprived feminine life. One of her works is entitled Self Obliteration, which seems to sum up a woman's utter despair, in life, in art, in anything real in the human world."

"O que podemos com elas em nosso favor e de mulher em mulher nos dizermos e contarmos do domínio que ainda somos, despojo hoje de guerreiros que se fingem companheiros em ajudada luta, mas que apenas pretendem montar-nos e serem cavaleiros de Marianas de outros cativeiros presas e monjas de diferentes conventos, sem disso se darem conta?"

"The stones groaned silently. The ideal has hit the pavement."

"What have you done to Athens, Socrates?"

"I want the Czarnolas thing!"

"And I played... And I feel even sadder."

"Bad, bad always and everywhere. This black thread is spinning: She is behind me, in front of me and next to me, She in every breath She in every smile She in tears, in prayer and in hymns..."

"For the country dear where but a crumb of bread Up from the ground with reverence we heave, Adoring thus the Boon by Heaven spread… O Lord I grieve…"

"Why, shadow, are you driving away with your arms broken into armor?"

"Hell is merely the impossibility of love."

"Poles are a great nation and a worthless society."

"Polishness is bitter bread..."

"If nothing happens, our children will die suffering, like their grandparents. We sacrifice, but we are not seeing the changes."

"Her work, inspired by European rural life and nuns from the Sisters of Mercy order, achieved international recognition, with her Walking Nuns painting selling thousands of copies worldwide."

"Some youths are lazy and addicted to alcohol and drug abuse. That is also killing our country,"

"These days, people are killing each other and killing children as well. It is very disturbing. We are living in a society that needs leadership."

"This is the picture of a woman who, after some differences with her husband, embarks on a lonely journey with food over her head for her child,"

"This was more about how I see the world and how I look at myself as a black woman born in apartheid South Africa in 1982."

"I believe that artwork should not be hidden, but the manner in which we have been robbed, it keeps one worried that it's better to keep one's work on the shelves,"

"The fabric used to produce uniforms for domestic workers is an instantly recognizable sight in domestic spaces in South Africa, and by applying it to Victorian dress she attempts to make a comment about history of servitude and colonization as it relates to the present in terms of domestic relationships."

"The spiritual life of the Malians, marked by acceptance of fate, inspired her to appreciate the harmony of living with circumstances."

"Aileen's exploration into steel led to kinetic sculptures, introducing movement and dynamic elements to her art."

"Her work represents a mode of African modernist painting and sculpture, wherein she depicts her experience of having grown up and living in the South African countryside, and later her experiences as a black artist, living and working under an apartheid regime."

"The female visual artists before my generation worked extra hard and paved the way for me. Some of them are being recognised only now; they died poor. For me it was easy; these women were the stepping stones."

"Her skill made her the first black woman, and the only Venda woman in South Africa, to become a famous wood carver. She also began to create works which followed more contemporary themes."

"Sibande's theatrical quotations of the language of dress and use of dramatic poses may be related to photographic representations of the Victorian female hysteric in various stages of a hysterical attack, in that they both evoke a sense of excess."

"...I can now marry the two worlds – fashion and fine art aren't far off from each other."

"She was one of seven artists representing contemporary South African art in Lisbon. Simultaneously, she was commissioned to create four abstract mural panels, titled The Discovery of Gold in the Witwatersrand, for the President Hotel in Johannesburg."

"The resilience and stoicism of the Mandingo kingdom, along with the vibrant markets of Bamako and Timbuktu, shifted her focus to capturing daily life with urgency and authenticity. The spiritual life of the Malians, marked by acceptance of fate, inspired her to appreciate the harmony of living with circumstances."

""I started because of a dream. It took a very long time, because I didn't understand it well. This was in 1965 and in 1974, I started the work"."

"Her body of work is divided into colour-based themes, and after her ‘blue period’, Mary moved to purple, with the highly acclaimed The Purple Shall Govern.""

"Sebidi's portraits often depict abstracted African subjects in bright colours and a rich palette. She is often associated with the realist and quasi-expressionist schools, with her vivid paintings of life in both rural and urban South Africa and similarly striking clay sculptures."

"Her figures of traditional ceremonies, women with babies, and those that capture daily life around her reflect profound expressiveness and mastering of her craft. She conveys the experience of apartheid from a Venda women’s perspective focusing in the exploration of her origins, displacement, race, and sex."

"The old people told us stories...about how people live and...about how to see. They "read" the clouds. We used to sit outside in the courtyard, and especially in the very bright moonlight when there were a lot of clouds they used to read the stories for us and tell us: look at that, look at the soldiers, look at this! And they would tell us: you're going to have to see other life that's coming."

"Through her unique depiction of the human figure, we come to appreciate Sebidi’s representation of different forms of black being, and a search into the relationship between humanism, spiritualism and the contemporary black African condition."

"I had everything I needed, and I went to a good high school which was multiracial. Many families couldn't afford to send their kids there but I was fortunate that my mum was able to. I guess that also pushed me in a certain direction."

"Sibande has used her work to expose many different things, from postcolonial South Africa to stereotypes of women as well as stereotypes regarding black women in South Africa."

"Her work contains multiple types of mediums such as sculpture, photography, design, collage, and even theatrics. Sibande's painting and sculpture uses the human form to explore the construction of identity in a postcolonial South African context, but also attempts to critique stereotypical depictions of women, particularly black women."

"Her work contemplates the feeling of social rejection, censure, and disapproval that comes with diverging from the established guidelines of accepted and expected behaviour."

"As a teenager, Sebidi became a domestic worker and estranged from her mother and step-father. Sebidi sewed and knitted and decided to pursue her art in her off-time with encouragement from the wife of her employer, who also pushed Sebidi towards formal training."

"There were no museums and galleries in the town I grew up in; that was foreign to me."

"emphatically one of our national artists", with "her quaint brush and charmingly original way of looking at things"

"Jill of all trades, and master of most of them... who, if she was busy, would slip a delicately beaded white chiffon dinner dress over her riding trousers and high leather boots, to arrive at a dinner party with a riding crop instead of a bag."

"self-possessed by nature and training", who "loved freedom... a slim intrepid woman, with her wide human interests, and zest for work... poised squarely in the path of life, like a bright eagle ready to fly the wind against any wrong done to the young, weak or innocent"

"an English lady who has long resided in the colony and has mingled farming with painting"

"Her works are designed for the high end luxury market, but also have a playful and girly charm."

"Her range of Skullchmey exotic animal skulls of crocodile, baboon, caracul are dipped in liquid precious metals in a technique she has developed herself. Her metal embalming process leaves the exotic animal skulls in an antiqued patina finish that is already being copied by others."

"“Diamonds are so polished and precious and usually associated with jewellery. When they are set against the unevenness of the bone, it’s quite interesting,”"

"“I’m challenging the conventional thought of an African curio,”"

"Her 2013 collection "Diamond Dreaming" included bracelets, necklaces and pendants inspired by the Islamic Hamsa motif as well as keys, crowns and peace signs in 9ct and 18ct white, yellow and rose gold."