Born in Gauteng, South Africa in 1961, Botha studied languages at the University of Pretoria and worked as a Press photographer for Beeld before moving to Cape Town in 1984. In 1988 she obtained a BA Fine Arts degree from the University of Cape Town. Since that time she has participated in over eighty South African group exhibitions and forty international group exhibitions and has held nine solo exhibitions.

She has curated five exhibitions and also served on the curatorial committee of the first Cape Town Month of Photography. In 2005 she collaborated with the French theatre group Compagnie des Limbes and attended a residency at Nouaison, Pujols with exhibitions at l'Ete Photographique de Lectoure and MC2a in Bordeaux, France.

Her work was included in the Bamako Biennale: Another World, 2005. In 2006 she attended the Ampersand Fellowship in New York. Her photographic narrative called Amendment was selected for Towards a balanced earth, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in 2008. In 2009 the portfolio White stick for the Arctic was exhibited at Reflets d'Afrique: Panafrican Festival, MOMA, Algiers.

In 2010 Botha attended an invited residency at kunst: raum sylt quelle in the north of Germany. Her work was included in Crossing Boundaries: Contemporary Art and Artists from South Africa at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar in 2011. From June to September 2011 her work was exhibited in Kuopio, Finland as part of Ars 11.

A selection of images from Parrot Jungle will be included in the ninth Bamako Encounters "Pour un monde durable" which opens in Mali in November 2011. Botha's work is represented in pivotal collections throughout South Africa as well as in key private collections locally and abroad.

Besides maintaining a professional photographic practice, she has been invited as guest lecturer at the Arts faculties of various tertiary institutions such as the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, and Studio Art Centres International, Florence, Italy .