Bonny M | January 16, 2025
Ghia Leigh’s creativity was shaped long before it had a name. Growing up in Cape Town, she moved fluidly between worlds, the Northern Suburbs and Cape Flats of old Belhar with her parents, and the Southern Suburbs at her grandmother’s home. This dual exposure offered her an early understanding of contrast, nuance, and rhythm, elements that would later become central to her artistic language.
As the oldest grandchild, solitude often became her companion, and in that quiet space, imagination flourished. She drew, played, and built entire worlds of her own. Watching her father, a draftsman, carefully plot out architectural designs left an impression, even if subtly. Given her own pens and paper, she drafted houses of her own, unknowingly nurturing a sensitivity to form, space, and visual balance that would resurface years later.
While creativity always lived close to the surface, it was during high school that art truly claimed her focus. School was not always easy, concentration was a challenge but Art, and unexpectedly Biology, ignited a deep hunger for learning. She became fascinated by artists, movements, and technique, driven not just to create, but to understand and refine her execution. That curiosity laid the foundation for a multidisciplinary career that would refuse to be confined to a single medium.
Formally trained as a visual artist, Ghia went on to study graphic design, a path that led her into advertising and media agencies, eventually working as an art director while also freelancing. Yet music and performance had always been quietly calling. As a child, she took music lessons, sang in school productions, and performed in the church choir, though for a long time, a creative career in music felt unrealistic. It was only later, as technology became more accessible, that she began experimenting with sound using GarageBand, followed by a music production course at Emendy and further training in Ableton. What started as curiosity soon became commitment.
Ghia went on to form a cover band, performing at corporate events and live shows, before releasing her first EP as a recording artist in 2018.
Returning to vocal training, Ghia found her way onto the stage through burlesque performances and later her own one-woman cabaret show. She went on to form a cover band, performing at corporate events and live shows, before releasing her first EP as a recording artist in 2018. Acting, which began as a lighthearted extramural activity at school, took a more serious turn during her time in Johannesburg. A short acting course led to her first television commercial, and upon returning to Cape Town, she immersed herself fully in training. Before long, she found herself steadily booking TV commercials, as well as roles in television and film.
Visually, Ghia’s artistic style has never stood still. In the early 2000s, alongside her first canvas works, she created a vinyl designer toy called Bizmoggi, deeply rooted in street art culture. Bizmoggi became both a playful product and a creative platform, a blank canvas for other artists to reinterpret and transform. Since her debut exhibition, The Effect, her work has continued to evolve, driven by experimentation with texture, technique, and emotional process. Music often acts as a catalyst in her visual practice, with sound guiding the mood, movement, and intensity of each piece. Her art is deeply emotive, shaped by lived experience rather than fixed aesthetics.
Visual storytelling sits at the heart of her creative identity. Whether through photography, art direction, music, or performance, she believes imagery has the power to clarify and deepen a vision instantly. Sound and image exist in constant dialogue, sometimes the visual informs the tone of the music, other times the music dictates colour, texture, and execution. Acting, while often guided by external briefs and scripts, remains its own discipline, though in interdisciplinary projects, sound tends to lead, shaping the performance before visuals follow.
Her latest single, Bloom, captures this philosophy with quiet strength. Born out of a deeply challenging personal period, the song reflects the act of sitting with discomfort and allowing truth to reveal itself, much like a flower unfolding in its own time.
Bloom is a gentle yet powerful offering, especially to women navigating emotional, mental, or health struggles. Rooted in a neo-soul, jazzy soundscape, the track speaks to rediscovery: finding your spark again, reconnecting with what makes you you, and emerging transformed. It follows her previous single, Awake, and forms part of a larger body of work she is developing, with hopes of eventually shaping it into a live show.
Across all her work, Ghia hopes audiences leave with a feeling, a moment of resonance, clarity, or recognition. Her aim is not instruction, but connection: allowing sound and imagery to evoke something personal and honest in the listener or viewer.
Influence, for her, has come as much from experience as from individuals. Early on, Jean-Michel Basquiat left a lasting impression, not only for his vibrant, layered work, but for his refusal to be constrained. More recently, life itself has been her greatest teacher. Over the past few years, returning to her craft has become a form of survival and healing. Working on canvas while listening to meditative drone sounds has become a therapeutic ritual, helping her regulate her nervous system and find centre amidst chaos.
One collaboration that remains especially meaningful is Have You Ever Drowned, created with UK producer Sam Holloway. Connected initially through SoundCloud, their shared love for Massive Attack and Portishead sparked a natural creative exchange. What began as a remix evolved into a deeply personal collaboration, with Ghia recording vocals from her home studio during lockdown. The track received strong reviews and continues to feel aligned with her current artistic direction, a testament to the timelessness of honest expression.
As a person of colour from South Africa, Ghia has often felt the pressure to create work that fits a prescribed narrative, whether politically aggressive or aesthetically “African” in a way that caters to external expectations.
Balancing multiple disciplines is not without its challenges. Ghia approaches it intuitively, creating flexible schedules and allowing herself to move between mediums as inspiration shifts. When one area feels blocked, she redirects her energy elsewhere, maintaining momentum without force. Acting work, when it arises, takes priority, followed by intentional pauses to re-centre before returning to her personal projects.
Navigating identity within the creative industry has been another ongoing challenge. As a person of colour from South Africa, she has often felt the pressure to create work that fits a prescribed narrative, whether politically aggressive or aesthetically “African” in a way that caters to external expectations. Unlearning that pressure and allowing her work to exist authentically remains a journey she is still on.
Her background in advertising has been both a gift and a hurdle. While it instilled discipline, structure, and respect for deadlines, it also introduced the habit of constantly considering a “target audience.” Letting go of that mindset, allowing true free flow and patience, has become an essential part of reclaiming her artistic voice.
At the intersection of her work lies a deep fascination with the symbiosis between sound and image. One medium often sparks solutions in another, as seen in her piece Transition, which began as a digital artwork for an animated visual accompanying a sonic journey she produced.
While she has yet to encounter an acting role that fully intersects with her personal creative work, she remains open, curious about what future projects may reveal. In all that she does, Ghia Leigh continues to bloom, not loudly, but deliberately creating work that is layered, honest, and deeply human.
What are you currently working on or looking forward to releasing that excites you most?
I’m currently in process of developing a production/show in an inter disciplinary manner, bringing my love for sound/music together with the visual element and performance. I’m especially looking forward to possibly performing a very stripped down version of this project that leans more in the direction of it being more experimental than over produced…but it’s very early days so can’t give too much away yet.