Hanien Conradie approaches painting as a way of negotiating belonging through direct material and ecological relationships with place. Working with soil (grond), clay, ochre, water, burnt plant material and cow dung gathered from specific sites, she sees these substances as more than materials: they are active agents that carry histories, register ecological conditions and bring plant, animal, earth and water into the painting. Her practice is informed by radical ecological thinking, in which human and more-than-human life are understood as deeply entangled.

Grounded in her experience as an Afrikaner woman, Conradie’s work engages questions of rootedness, alienation, indigeneity and displacement through the political and material conditions of land. Some of the materials she uses also carry significance within ritual and healing practices, connecting the paintings to ideas of transformation and hope. Through painting, she explores the reciprocal relations between bodies, land and living systems, understanding belonging not as a fixed inheritance or secure attachment, but as a contested, embodied and continually negotiated relationship with place.