Lady in Blue, Trafalgar Square, London’s Fourth Plinth Commission for 2026: In Conversation with Tschabalala Self
Updated: Feb 9
Tschabalala Self (b. 1990 Harlem, USA) lives and works in Hudson Valley, New York. Tschabalala is an artist and builds a singular style from the syncretic use of both painting and printmaking to explore ideas about the black body. She constructs depictions of predominantly female bodies using a combination of sewn, printed, and painted materials, traversing different artistic and craft traditions. The formal and conceptual aspects of Self's work seek to expand her critical inquiry into selfhood and human flourishing.
Recent solo and group exhibitions include: Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo (2024); Highline, New York (2024) Brooklyn Museum, New York (2024); FLAG Foundation, New York (2024); Barbican, London (2024); CC Strombeek, Grimbergen, Belgium (2023); Desert X, Coachella Valley (2023); Kunstmuseum St Gallen (2023); Le Consortium, Dijon (2022); Performa 2021 Biennial, New York (2021); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (2021); Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2021); ICA, Boston (2020); Studio Museum Artists in Residence, MoMA PS1, New York (2019); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019); Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2019), amongst many others.
Gabriella Kardos: The Fourth Plinth commissions make us look at the world in different ways, addressing issues of importance for British society. They point a mirror to our contemporary world, they embody ideas which need to be expressed in concrete form to remind us of important issues we are facing today. How do you view Lady in Blue within this context?
Tschabalala Self: Lady in Blue is a sculpture that pays homage to a young, metropolitan woman of colour—a quotidian figure, like many one might encounter in contemporary London. Lady in Blue is not a figure from the historical or political past, but rather a symbol of our shared present and future ambitions. She reflects equity through representation, acknowledgement, and action, where all global citizens are exalted and appreciated for their unique contributions, and a future where the ordinary individual is recognised for their extraordinary capabilities. She expresses resilience and grace through the complications of our ever-evolving modern world.
Inspired by a desire to bring a contemporary woman to Trafalgar Square, Lady in Blue adds a new perspective to the public space. Unlike Henry Havelock, Charles James Napier, or George Washington, this anonymous woman is not a real person but an icon; she represents many individuals rather than the adulation of one. This symbolism allows all who interact with the sculpture to imbue her with their own personal relationship and take meaning from her placement.
This figure would be the first sculpture of mine to depict a walking figure. Movement and walking are associated with agency in my work. The fact that my figures are often ‘on the move’ speaks to their ability to assert their own will and exist within their own reality, rather than existing solely for the edification of the viewer. Similarly, I feel there is great political power in showing a woman walking in the public sphere as opposed to being posed or static: the gesture illuminates the forward moment of all women collectively.
GK: Monuments have been pulled down in the recent past. Is this sculpture a way of addressing the historical imbalance of power?
TS: Public art exists to challenge preconceived notions, allowing all individuals, even those who did not seek an artistic experience, to encounter it. These encounters can be intense, conjuring a range of emotions, from joy to rage. As an artist working within the public realm, I have seen the full gamut of reactions. I do not value one over the other as all elevate the discourse around any given project. In 2023, Seated (2022) was targeted and attacked by vandals in Bexhill-on-Sea, an incident that was particularly disheartening as it epitomised the violence Black and female bodies are subjected to. The violence enacted on the sculpture illuminates the persistent issues plaguing contemporary society and exemplifies the need for more diversity and representation in public art. Exalted images of people of colour and women should not provoke rage and should not automatically be deemed political. Iconography depicting blackness should be treated with the same respect and neutrality given to artistic media depicting all other groups. After the attack, rather than hide the sculpture from view, I wanted the local community to feel empowered though action. I organised with the museum a restoration event through which the community could remove the paint from the sculpture. Three hundred people queued to help to clean the sculpture and through community support she was restored to her former likeness.
GK: Can you talk about the scale of the work and the choice of materials: bronze and a dress painted in dazzling Lapis Lazuli?
TS: Made of bronze, Lady in Blue will reference existing sculptures in the square but will be patinated, adding colour to signify a change. The blue is Lapis Lazuli, a rare and refined pigment used since antiquity, in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe primarily, a colour that has gained historical significance over time. Lapis Lazuli was used by Renaissance artists such as Bellini and Raphael and was often reserved for the clothes of the central character of their paintings, particularly the Virgin Mary. The blue remained significant for centuries in Western painting. I am interested, for example, in the link with Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring—as with Lady in Blue, the painting is a character study rather than a portrait of a particular person, a gesture that opens questions and conversations, rather than a fixed meaning. In both works, the protagonists are draped in ethereal Lapis Lazuli.
GK: How does this work fit within your art practice in general?
TS: The starting point for this figure was a series of drawings I made in 2020 in preparation for my first public art project, commissioned by Performa 2021, which took the form of an experimental play. In 2020, I was deep in character development, devoting a lot of attention to the two main archetypes who would become the play’s main protagonists. My commission, Sounding Board, bore a series of fictional characters, amalgamations of several people who have appeared since in various iterations throughout my work. These drawings were strange, making great use of symbology, often conflating the figures with set props and various objects that one might find within the home. The domestic space and its trappings became embedded in my figures. My series At Home, which later inspired my first public sculpture commission Seated (2022), was developed during this time. My first two public art projects are tethered to a mediation on the home, which may seem ironic; but the home is a microcosm of the society at large and should never be considered distinct from the public realm.
This interview was conducted by Gabriella Kardos, an artist and art historian. In 1976 she escaped communism with her family, fleeing Ceaușescu’s regime in Romania and emigrating to Montreal, Canada in search of freedom. Here she studied Fine Arts at Dawson College and Art History at Concordia University. She went on to teach Art Theory in the Painting and Drawing Department of Concordia University and Painting in the MA course of Vermont College of Norwich University, USA. She holds an MA from Central St Martins, London and has exhibited at the Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague, Anglia Polytechnic University in Ipswich, UK, ROSL, Victoria & Albert Museum, and WCPF in London. She lives in London where she is pursuing her art practice in painting and printmaking.
