The Hand That Took the Dreamer | Njabulo Hlophe

The Hand That Took the Dreamer is an original work created with acrylic paint, aerosol, charcoal, oil pastel, collage paper, and a bottle cap. 2024. 

Njabulo Hlophe (b. 1996- Johannesburg, South Africa) is an illustrator and visual artist currently based in Johannesburg operating under the pseudonym Dirty Native Chief. He would best describe his practice as storytelling rather than mere image making and the stories in question are merely glimpses into the human experience. Njabulo completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in visual communication at the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography in the Western Cape where he conceptualized and created Studio Dirty Native. Njabulo’s work is can be seen as a response to observations about human life, and not only as a means to scrutinize and critique the human experience but rather a means to explore it and how he exists in relation to that particular experience as a young black cultural hybrid walking the contemporary landscape.