‘When we were children, the old people gathered us around the fire at night and told us stories before sleeping. I painted these stories so that I could pass it on to my children and they can pass it on to theirs.’

‘In the old days when a man wanted to take a wife he would go to the parents and ask to marry the women; then if they agreed they would send him to her uncle and ask him too. If he also agreed you could marry her. And so it was a family matter.

‘And that is how our lifestyle was lost when we came to South Africa.’

Kunyanda was born in the small town of Mucusso, Angola in 1954. As a child her father taught her the skills of subsistence farming. She received her traditional education from her family. Her grandmother in particular, passed on her traditional Khwe oral literature to Kunyanda.

She is the only Khwedam-speaking artist in South Africa.

After fleeing from the war in Angola with her brother, she worked as a waitress in the army restaurant at Omega in Namibia. Here she married her husband, Jason.

After moving to South Africa, she worked as a casual farm labourer before joining the Art Project.

Kunyanda has four daughters.