Marolize Southwood is an artist based in Cape Town. She completed her BAFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2017. She was born in Potchefstroom and grew up in Viljoenskroon, a small town in the Free State. At Michaelis, Marolize majored in photography but has since expanded her practice to include painting.

Marolize's work stems from a fascination with the concept of life, but specifically, the constructed “life” that we humans have created for ourselves. She explores this through the concepts of spaces and objects. In her still life paintings, Marolize creates a narrative through compositions that invite the viewer to explore potential meanings and links between the objects. Using familiar objects in unusual pairings, she aims to create a subtle absurdity in her work. This reflects Marolize's views upon modern human life, that if you look at it closely you notice the absurdity. Furthermore, this absurdity is disguised in her painterly depiction of the still life. Her loose impasto paint application allows the objects to integrate into one another, further obscures their meaning and adds to the viewer's ability to construct their own narrative.

For the most part, Marolize's compositions are devoid of natural elements, except for the inclusion of flowers. These flowers represent the role nature plays in this constructed human life, the amusement we gain from it, the strain we put on it and also our distance from it. Marolize believes that there is humour and beauty in the absurdity that is the human race, the things we do to pass the time and the stuff we make.