WORDS Palesa Mohola PHOTOS Supplied

A new platform for KZN’s creative economy makes its debut at the Hilton Arts Festival. With its ever-evolving cultural influence, KwaZulu-Natal becomes firm ground for the KZN Art Fair, an independent, professionally curated exposition, co-founded by Lungelo Mkhize and Angela Shaw to form strong roots in the province.

The Making Ground exhibition serves as a spotlight for the excellence and ingenuity of KZN practitioners shaping contemporary South African material culture. Taking its name from the poem Dunes by A. R. Ammons, a meditation on the act of building something of value in uncertain conditions, the exhibition, created in partnership with Belgotex, is arranged across four curatorial themes: industrial, mythic, earthen and geometric exploration. The showcase includes pieces by The Ninevites, Siviwe Jali, Astrid Dahl, Studio Kalki, ifa crafted by the KZNSA Gallery, Mess by Kevin Boyd, Crooks Goods, Belgotex’s Pietermaritzburg-based YUDU brand, and others.

Belgotex, a proudly South African flooring manufacturer with more than 40 years of experience in the commercial and residential carpet industry, committed to circular design principles and environmental responsibility, brings to life a collaboration curated by Lauren Lockhart-Barker, design strategist of The Forgotten Flexible, and Angela Shaw, co-founder of the inaugural KZN Art Fair.

“They get it; Belgotex understands the connection between high-capacity production, creative innovation and the design sustainability that emerges when the two are brought together,” says Angela, describing why Belgotex is a logical partner for this collaboration. “South Africa has extraordinary creative talent, but talent alone is not enough; it needs a manufacturing base that can bring it to life at scale, with quality, and on home soil,” adds Lauren Lockhart-Barker.

This landmark exhibition can be viewed at the Memorial Hall at Hilton College for free from 7-9 August 2026. | kznartfair.com

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WORDS Palesa Mohola PHOTOS Supplied

Artist Proof Studio is one of South Africa’s leading centres for printmaking, combining professional printmaking facilities with an internationally recognised educational programme. For 35 years, APS has played a pivotal role in developing generations of South African artists while promoting printmaking as a powerful and accessible contemporary art form.

“Our exhibition in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year was an encouraging experience, and returning for the KZN Art Fair allows us to continue those conversations. We are excited to share the breadth of South African printmaking while learning more about how collectors and audiences in the region engage with the work,” says Nathi Simelane, APS Chief Operating Officer.

Established in 1991 by Kim Berman and the late Nhlanhla Xaba, the renowned Johannesburg-based printmaking centre features the work of 22 artists in a display centred around dialogue. The display includes works by different generations of artists, creating conversations about the different techniques and evolving approaches to printmaking – from archive prints by celebrated South African artists to newly released editions by emerging voices redefining the medium – all to be seen at the annual Hilton Arts Festival.

“Printmaking offers remarkable diversity – not only in artistic expression but also in technique, scale and accessibility. We want visitors to discover work that surprises them and artists they may encounter for the first time, while recognising many of the established names that have shaped South African contemporary art,” says Simelane.

This exhibition is set to reveal an unexpected combination of techniques – including lithography and screen printing — as well as varying scales and materials, demonstrating how printmaking continues to expand beyond its traditional boundaries and highlighting its enduring relevance within South Africa’s visual arts landscape.

Featured artists include

Bambo Sibiya • Cassius Khumalo • Jan Tshikhuthula • Kagiso Diale • Kim Berman • Lebohang Motaung • Lehlogonolo Masoabi • Mashir Kresenshun • Mary Sibande • Moloko Mabota • Mongezi Ncaphayi • Nathi Ndlandla • Nelson Makamo • Norman Catherine • Phillemon Hlungwani • Ramarutha Makoba • Raymond Fuyana • Sue Martin • Thabang Lehobye • Themba Khumalo • Walter Oltmann • William Kentridge

The collaboration between The Hilton Arts Festival, a mosaic of experiences with over 25 000 visitors and a platform for both established and emerging talent; the inaugural KZN Art Fair, which aims to create new opportunities for artists, galleries, designers and collectors; and APS, which has a long-standing commitment to nurturing artistic talent and advancing printmaking as one of the country’s most dynamic creative disciplines, promises long-lasting relationships with collectors, galleries and audiences in the region.

Visitors will not only see beautiful artworks, but will also learn more about the Studio’s internationally respected training programme, which has produced generations of leading South African artists. artistproofstudio.co.za | kznartfair.com

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PHOTOS Thea Cogil/Courtesy of Curación Collection

Sourcing clay from the land around him, South African clay artist Mick Haigh forms each vessel by hand before firing it in a long wood-fired kiln. Each piece carries the marks of flame, ash and chance, shaped as much by nature as by the maker.

His Kiln IV collection speaks to ritual and slowness, offering vessels made to be held, used and lived with.

Curación Collection shares this focus on process, material and intention: a commitment to the quiet beauty of everyday ritual. Here, Mick tells us about his practice and current body of work.

What do you hope people feel or carry with them after encountering your work in this space?

“Connection, that humans are not just visitors but part of this living planet. Finding your place at home here in this wild world changes a lot.”

Your work is shaped by earth, fire and time. How do these forces influence your approach to making?

“My approach is not cerebral; clay comes from the earth, not a plastic bag. Wood comes from trees and time from the sun. All these raw elements speak for themselves; I connect the conversation. My approach is counterintuitive: what can this clay around me do, what temperature will it vitrify at, how thick does the vessel wall have to be to stand up to fire, and how long will the fire heat take to vitrify the clay? So materials influence the making as much as my ideas about what to make.”

Can you speak to the role of slowness and process in your practice?

“Slowness and process intertwine through materials. Clay air dries at its own rate based on airflow and humidity, and wood burns at the rate of oxygen supply. My practice is governed by how my materials behave, and how much I can modify them.

“The sun and moon cycles happen independent of how busy we are. Our minds bend time. Natural materials like clay and wood behave outside of time. My practice captures this time, recording the slow process of turning malleable clay born of eroded rock over millions of years into hard, enduring rock again. Bending time through material provenance.”

What inspired you to create this body of work?

“My inspiration comes from knowing that living with meaningful objects can create meaning in our lives. How objects make you feel enhances your quality of life. Do we need more objects in this world? I think we need more feeling in this world.”

How does your current body of work explore a sense of place?

“Provenance is very powerful, connecting humans to source. Being rooted in the familiar warmth of earth, the non-challenging warmth of things made by hand for human comfort gives a sense of I am part of this place, not a superior observer but part of this living world which I affect and which affects me. Connection.”

What values do you feel you share with the Curación Collection, and the body of work you’re creating?

“Human living/leisure environment can only be as good as the evolved thought put into its creation. I create pieces which I feel are not available. I have thought about how I can supply vessels, artworks, pieces to enhance living spaces and quality of life. I feel much goes into the building and designing of structures, and not enough attention goes into how they feel because of what we put in them and how we use them. What we choose to live with. After decades of designing and making tabletop ceramics, I am now using my clay knowledge and skill to explore vessels as art pieces as feelings of expression. I strongly feel the living/workspace edit is long overdue. The values we have in common lie in the quality of feeling and expression, no more average to get the job done.” curacion-collection.co.za | mickhaigh.com

Mick Haigh’s work will be on display at Curación – 9 Orphan Street, Cape Town – from 6th August until the 30th August.

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PHOTOS Courtesy of RK Contemporary

Innovative Threads II returns to RK Contemporary from 2–30 August 2026, with an exhibition spotlighting eight South African contemporary fibre artists.

Originally founded by Margie Garratt in 1996, Innovative Threads championed contemporary fibre art long before the medium gained the widespread recognition it enjoys today. The exhibition established an international reputation over a decade of touring exhibitions in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Japan and New Zealand. With Margie’s blessing, Astrid McLeod, owner and curator of RK Contemporary, has revived the exhibition that helped shape her own journey into the contemporary art world, with the aim of re-establishing it as an annual celebration of innovation, creativity and contemporary fibre art.

“What excites me most about this exhibition is the individuality of the artists. Although they all work with fibre, no two approach the medium in the same way, creating work that reflects distinctly different perspectives and challenges traditional perceptions of textile art. Each artist brings a completely different perspective, making this an exhibition full of discovery, conversation and unexpected connections,” says Astrid McLeod, owner and curator of RK Contemporary.

From deconstructed protea fibres and meditative patchwork to sculptural felt vessels and hand-woven wool works, the exhibition features works by Katja Abbott, Willemien de Villiers, Dineo Ponde Mafora, Leah Johnson, Leila Walter, Nina Kruger, Virginia McKenny & Margaret Courtney-Clarke and Berdine van der Mescht.

More than a showcase of exceptional textile practice, Innovative Threads II demonstrates how contemporary artists are redefining the possibilities of fibre.

Innovative Threads II is showing at RK Contemporary, 32 Main Street, Riebeek-Kasteel from 2–30 August 2026. | rkcontemporary.com

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WORDS Neyani Mphephu PHOTOS Supplied

For Nwabisa Ntlokwana, sculpture has always been about what cannot be photographed. Growing up with a mother who captured memory through a lens, she gravitated towards something slower and more physical – materials that hold weight, carry history and demand presence. That instinct has since evolved into Motherwood, her most significant body of work to date, which uses leather, wood and found materials to explore the relationship between motherhood, memory and legacy. The recipient of the inaugural DLO Energy Resources Group Artist Prize at RMB Latitudes, Ntlokwana is among South Africa’s most compelling emerging sculptors. Here, she reflects on her process, her materials and the stories she still feels compelled to tell.

Your practice is deeply rooted in personal experience, particularly your journey through motherhood and the legacy of your late mother. How did these dual influences first shape your decision to work with sculptural materials, and how do they continue to guide the stories you tell through your work?

“I grew up watching my mother capture memory in an instant, a single frame and fixed forever. That shaped me more than I realised at the time, but when I started working with sculpture I realised I was reaching for the opposite of what my mother did. Sculpture for me is about holding weight and presence, it’s not something that you can glance at and move past. I think I wanted to give her a way of seeing the body.

“Then motherhood came and closed a loop. I became a daughter who continues to carry a memory of her mother as well as a mother who is now creating memories of her own and the legacy I’d want to leave for my child.”

Your current body of work, Motherwood, explores the relationship between wood and leather as materials that mirror the life cycles of motherhood. Could you walk us through how you chose these specific materials and what they represent for you?

“I wouldn’t say I choose the materials that show up in my work – it’s really the other way around. My approach to materials is very childlike: with an open mind, curious, unafraid to ask questions I don’t know the answers to yet. That’s what gives me the freedom to experiment without worrying about getting it right. In that process of poking and playing and figuring things out, I end up learning something about myself and the materials become a kind of mirror for how I see who I am.”

You work primarily with leather, wood and found materials, many of which are unconventional or discarded. What draws you to materials that have had a previous life, and how does the idea of transformation play into your creative process?

“This is honestly the best part of my process. It’s quite a journey. Growing up, I had always been drawn to old things. They carry so much memory and endurance, and that’s something I relate to deeply, both as a mother and as an individual. I don’t think I would be the person I am today without my personal experiences. They have shaped how I see and touch everything I create. And nothing beats the joy of watching these objects come back to life, taking on a new form while still holding onto all the memory they carry within them.”

Receiving the inaugural DLO Energy Resources Group Artist Prize at RMB Latitudes is a significant milestone. How do you think this recognition will shape the trajectory of your career, and what does it mean for you as an emerging artist in South Africa?

“This achievement is an investment in what comes next, giving me space to breathe with the opportunities it’s created. The exposure fuelled by the DLO Energy Resources Group Artist Prize has already given me a freedom to create without fear rather than chasing opportunities simply to stay afloat. It’s also a reminder that our stories and our labour hold value – not just aesthetically but also economically. As creatives, we are often told to separate art from the business but this prize does the opposite. It’s empowering me as an artist and as a business which is something that you need to have a sustainable practice.”

What does the reality of being an emerging artist in South Africa look like day to day, and what are the biggest challenges you face in building a sustainable career?

“It’s a day to day balancing act. The romanticised idea of a full time studio practice is not a reality for many emerging artists. You are building a practice around everything that keeps you afloat. The biggest challenge is the cost of existing as an artist before you have made a cent, then there’s materials, studio space, transportation of the work to galleries. None of this is cheap, you are spending money before making any and nothing is guaranteed.

“Visibility is also a factor. In South Africa, there is a pool of artists who make exceptionally great art but there is a small collector base relative to the number of artists. This means we are all competing for the same opportunities, fairs, open calls, residences and gallery space. Getting in front of the right people often matters as much as the quality of the work.”

Your work speaks to how women carry memory across generations and continually reinvent themselves. How do you see your role as both an artist and a mother influencing the way you think about legacy and what you pass on, both creatively and personally?

“Becoming a ‘mother’ has completely changed how I view legacy. How I create is truly how I raise my child. Both are about what gets carried forward and what gets left behind. I think about the woman who came before us, like my mother. What they carried that was never written down or documented – but it lived on through the stories they shared with us, how they cooked, cared and held themselves through hard seasons. My work is partly an attempt to hold on to those memories and pass them on to the next generation. As a mother, I also feel a huge responsibility about what gets passed on – so I have to tread carefully.”

You’ve mentioned your ambition to create monumental sculptural works. Where do you see your practice heading next, and what stories do you still feel compelled to tell?

“Scale is the next step – these stories deserve to take up space. So it will bring on new challenges to my practice and my journey. As for stories, motherhood is a fraction of my identity and I don’t have a solid blueprint of life yet, so I will let the journey continue and let the work speak when it’s ready.” | @nwabisantl0kwana

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PHOTOS Graham De Lacy

As the final instalment in the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation‘s acclaimed Worldmaking exhibition series, Reverse Futures expands on the themes presented in Ecospheres (2024) and Structures (2025) by exploring the techno-future.

Centred on ideas of the future from the Global South, where past, present and future are interconnected, Reverse Futures examines how the effects of colonialism, migration and technological change continue to shape both the present and our vision of what lies ahead.

The featured artworks reflect on migration, memory, ecology, the cosmos and power, inviting viewers to reconsider the role of technology. These themes unfold through immersive and unexpected encounters that challenge dominant narratives of progress, opening space for alternative ways of imagining the planet’s future without losing sight of ongoing injustices, including how they may be reproduced beyond Earth.

Visitors in the installation Event Horizon (2026) by Kamil Adam Hassim, in the Reverse Futures exhibition.

“While the central idea of the Reverse Futures exhibition engages with technology, it does this from a local vantage, asking fundamentally humane questions about the world we inhabit. How might we imagine a better world not built on power and extraction, but one that enables us to think about our future in South Africa as part of a continuum of community, environmental care and historical learning? Can artists help us to define a new path for future generations that is generative and equitable? Through spectacular and subtle ideas, offering beauty and pathos, the exhibition will excite adults and children alike,” says JCAF’s Executive Director and curator of the exhibition, Clive Kellner.

The exhibition’s curation is centred on three interconnected sections: Space, Time and Place.

Space presents the cosmos through Indigenous knowledge, displacement and perception, framing it as a site of survival and imagination; Time connects cave histories and modernist painting, showing how past and present intertwine through shared marks, gestures and the legacies of colonialism; and Place explores how technology and sensory experience can connect locations, memories and communities, creating new ways of archiving personal and collective stories.

Featured artists

• Etel Adnan (Lebanon / United States)
• Cave_bureau (Kenya)
• Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (Australia / United States; Serbia)
• Paula Gaetano Adi (Argentina)
• Kamil Adam Hassim (South Africa)
• Traci Kwaai (South Africa)
• Ernest Mancoba (South Africa)
• Georgia Munnik (South Africa)
• Yinka Shonibare (Nigeria / United Kingdom)

Special projects

• Rebecca Potterton (South Africa)
• Wolff Architects (South Africa)

Reverse Futures runs until 5 December 2026. | jcaf.org.za

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WORDS Mary Corrigall PHOTOS Michael Hall (Everard Read), Domenic Singh-Gorin (Ecletica Contemporary)

Consuming art at art fairs or via social media has become a high speed activity. The Heat Winter Arts Festival is encouraging visitors to opt to zone in deeply on a few select works of art with a ‘slow looking’ campaign framing its visual arts programme this year. Of course, as this festival takes place from August 6 to 15 across over 15 venues in Cape Town’s city centre, there is a lot of art to take in during this annual festival, now in its third year. However, as it lasts over nine days, there is enough time for people to linger, revisit and savour art.

Guided walkabouts through each location, led by curators Nkgopoleng Moloi and Voni Baloyi, will offer participants the opportunity for thoughtful observation and in-depth discussions with selected artists.

Heat Winter Arts Festival was established in 2024 in an effort to stimulate art viewing, buying and cultural activities during a time of year typically thought of as ‘dead’ time in Cape Town. As an arts commentator and critic, the quality of our programming is a top priority. The theatre, music, digital art, dance, stand-up comedy, performance art and opera is all of a high standard, with each being curated by a specialist in those art forms.

Unlike most arts festivals in South Africa our visual arts programme is the core part of our annual event and is united by a central theme titled ‘Ctrl + Z’, referring to a common drive to undo harm, restore an equilibrium or rewrite the past. The participating galleries are Aspire Auction House in collaboration with David Krut Projects, AVA Gallery, Christopher Moller Gallery, Eclectica Contemporary, Everard Read / CIRCA Galleries, House Union Block / Spier Arts Trust, Nel Gallery, SMAC Gallery, WORLDART, Untitled Art, Berman Contemporary All Women’s Gallery, 33Bree, Strauss & Co, Peffers Fine Art, THK Gallery, Thomarts Gallery, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Africa Art and Iziko South African National Gallery and Iziko Old Town House.

Spending more time with fewer works but delving more deeply into them aligns with the fact that many of the works and artists participating in the festival are weighing in on everyday materials – reconsidering things in plain sight. Artists are turning to soil, plastic, rust, coffee sacks, steel, wood, and found matter to ask what objects help us recall, what surfaces reveal, and what might be reimagined when we spend more time looking.

A focus on materials is most notable in the much-anticipated preview of the second edition of Matereality at the Iziko South African National Gallery, curated by Andrea Lewis. The exhibition brings together contemporary artists from across the African continent that include; Bella Knemeyer, Inga Somdyala, Warren Maroon, Sepideh Mehraban, Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Bonolo Kavula, Lungisa Gqunta, Chris Soal, Unathi Mkhonto, Kimathi Mafafo, Dada Khanyisa, Elias Sime and Abdoulaye Konate. These artists’ practices foreground the expressive and conceptual possibilities of materials, from soil, cloth, wood, and metal to found objects and industrial substances. As its title suggests, Matereality explores how materials shape reality, carrying memory, identity, land, belonging, and cultural knowledge.

At the newly opened Berman Contemporary All Women Art Gallery, Thirza Schaap’s Plastic Ocean presents discarded plastic collected from shorelines into seductive sculptural compositions. At first, the works may appear like elegant compositions or abstract arrangements of colour; on closer inspection, they reveal the residue of everyday consumption and ecological neglect. In the context of HEAT’s Ctrl + Z theme, the work asks whether we can “undo” environmental damage.

This conversation is extended at Thomarts Gallery, where Nkosinathi Thomas Ngulube’s Bags of Stories sees reused coffee bags and coffee extracts used as vessels for memory. These are not neutral materials. Coffee carries histories of trade, labour, colonial routes, and contemporary consumption, while the bags themselves suggest storage, movement, use, and reuse.

Materiality becomes a conversation between textile art and sculpture at Peffers Fine Art, with Tshepo Phokojoe in dialogue with Edoardo Villa’s steel sculptures. This unexpected pairing of works “seeks to renew attention to inherited forms – structural, historical, psychological – and to make those forms newly visible through the proximity of contrasting material languages.”

At Eclectica Contemporary, Lars Fischedick’s sculptural hanging works made from wood bring a more tactile, physical register to the programme. His practice engages matter directly, pushing materials towards tension, erosion, and disruption. Fischedick’s works superficially share a relationship with the extraordinary paintings by Ayobola Kekere-Ekun at the AVA gallery in that they present highly textured surfaces, albeit she employs fabric and acrylic to arrive at quasi sculptural works.  She positions the medium as both “collaborator and witness.”

These exhibitions remind us that materials for art are never just materials. They carry texture, labour, memory, place, and atmosphere. They change the way a room feels. They ask us to look again at what we discard, what we live with, what we collect, and what we choose to preserve.

Heat Winter Arts Festival takes place from August 6 to 15 in Cape Town. | heatfestival.org

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WORDS Sean O’Toole PHOTOS Courtesy of the THK Gallery, Goodman Gallery and Everard Read, Supplied PORTRAITS Rebecca Boulet, Courtesy of Goodman Gallery, Supplied

New talent is the lifeblood of the art scene. It’s why canny dealers and curators haunt graduate exhibitions, feigning indifference, scanning degree shows for next year’s big name. Instagram has become an auxiliary viewing room, with many high-profile collectors now scrolling as avidly as they once strode through art school corridors.

For those who prefer to saunter rather than swipe for talent, the art fair circuit offers its own barometer of what’s next. In South Africa’s comparatively new market, youth carries particular currency. The Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Art Joburg and Latitudes Art Fair each foreground emerging artists through dedicated prizes: respectively, the Investec Emerging Artist Award, the FNB Art Prize, and the ANNA Award for women artists. Recent winners have skewed Millennial.

For artists, the period between their late 20s and early 40s is a time of ambition and attrition. Four of the five artists profiled here are old enough to have outlasted early doubt, but young enough to remain institutionally nimble. They’re all “ones to watch”.

Tshepiso Moropa

When she finished high school, Joburg-based collage artist Tshepiso Moropa had to park her dreams. Following her parents’ advice, she studied psychology and linguistics at Wits. The training lingers in her work, which is attentive to language, memory and identity. Her handcraft ed photo collages, presented in her debut at the 2026 Cape Town Art Fair, draw on Tswana folk tales shared with her by her aunt. “The subject matter oft en includes self-portraits or archived images of African women that I’ve sourced from library resources or research sites on the internet,” Tshepiso explains. “The archive serves as a site for both excavation and recreation.”

She treats found photographs as living documents. “I use archived images as proxies for memory, especially concerning cultural heritage and the present time.”

Figures are cut, layered and re-staged against stark white backgrounds, as if suspended between eras. The effect is neither nostalgic nor didactic. “My collages celebrate blackness, and pride in our heritage and culture. The focus is on finding a sense of belonging within ourselves, rather than seeking it from others.” @tshepisomoropaa

Guy Simpson

In the three years since his debut solo at THK Gallery, painter and sculptor Guy Simpson has moved briskly through South Africa’s blue-chip ecosystem, also showing at Everard Read and Goodman Gallery. Yet it was his 2024 exhibition “Over the Garden Wall” at Breakroom Projects – a Woodstock space created by artist Igshaan Adams – that was decisive. Installed alongside a freestanding motorised gate and a pair of shoes caught mid-stride, Guy showed irregularly shaped, layered abstractions. The paintings, some of which read like peeled sections of scuffed walls, announced his interest in pushing beyond the literal.

His earliest works were precise drawings of interiors. This domestic theme informed paintings of his childhood home in the Joburg suburb of Sydenham – a pitched-roof bungalow he moved into at age six and left at 19, to study at the Cape Town Creative Academy. His work concentrated on its unremarkable fixtures: plug points, parquet floors, alarm sensors, brass numbers.

His Goodman Gallery exhibition, “Was Here”, presented a mix of descriptive and irregular abstractions, the latter now framed. “I was struggling to sell the larger canvas works,” he says. “Stretching and framing them helped me do a lot more with the medium; I now have a rigid structure to layer more materials.” Framing may have closed some doors – but it opened others. @guysimpson_

Kamva Matuis

Shortcuts to becoming an artist are rare, though luck can sometimes accelerate the process. Joburg-based painter Kamva Matuis, the only Gen Z artist here, is enjoying such a moment. Trained at Wits, last year he presented a solo exhibition at Lemkus Gallery, an important early-career space run by Michaelis graduate Jared Leite. Among the work, an upward-looking view of two Fallists preparing to cover the statue of Cecil John Rhodes lingered, partly because of its unusual vantage point but also for its restrained palette. Kamva, who was born in Burgersdorp in the Eastern Cape, described the painting as a form of exorcism.

The momentum has continued. In January, he participated in Everard Read’s Cubicle Series, showing earlier paintings triggered by his first visit to Cape Town. A month later he appeared with two galleries at the Cape Town Art Fair: Lemkus presented a jolting composition of a stitched-up cadaver with a half-eaten apple balanced on its torso, while tastemaker Blank Projects showed portraits of Winnie Mandela and Nina Simone – both role models for the artist.

Kamva is an assured figurative painter with a marked feeling for brown – a notoriously difficult colour. But while good painters are plentiful, interesting ones are rare. And he is interesting. @matuiskamva

Amy Rusch

“My work is fed by my experiences in sailing and archaeology,” says Cape Town-born textile artist Amy Rusch. Equally comfortable crewing a boat on the Atlantic and tracing rock engravings in the Northern Cape, Amy produces works that are an elegant metabolism of her experiences.

Water is integral to understanding her practice. In recent years, she’s shown large hanging textile pieces made of nylon spinnaker sail, either as collages or free-form installations. She’s best known for her work using salvaged plastic bags, many found on shorelines. “Plastic is the material of our time,” she says.

In her hands, the plastic buckles under accumulated stitching. Tension is palpable. The outcome may be abstract, but her works feel animated, offering an “archaeological sense” of now. Cut, flattened and tensioned into submission, they become the ground for machine stitching. Thread, often inherited from female relatives, functions as both a drawing tool and quiet biographical trace.

Her compositions range from tight, almost cartographic colour fields to spare contour studies referencing a sailboat crossing of the South Atlantic. Time spent on archaeological sites with her father also registers in her layered, topographical works. She was awarded the Materiality Prize at the 2026 Cape Town Art Fair. @amy.rusch

Warren Maroon

“I started making art late due to, well, things,” says Warren Maroon, winner of the Emerging Artist Award at the 2026 Cape Town Art Fair. In 2020, while working as a gallery assistant, he presented his debut, “Living in a Box”. The exhibition featured commonplace objects such as bricks, hammers and burglar bars; one work comprised a hammer wrapped in a pink cloth, like a mourning shroud. His sculptures reflected his – and many other young men’s – lived experience of the Cape Flats.

Warren’s muscular practice caught the eye of Everard Read, who invited him to show in its Cubicle Series. His 2023 solo at the gallery, “Well, there goes that dream”, included a freestanding installation composed of dowel sticks and gavels.

Inspired by Italy’s post-war Arte Povera movement, Warren’s materialist practice is propositional. It wants you to consider the potential of ordinary things. His latest solo at Everard Read builds on his long-standing interest in hammers, using a new medium: paper. “The exhibition is about a hammer and a nail, and the power relationship between the two,” he says. “One can’t survive without the other. I usually use multiple found objects to tell a story, but it can become too abstract, so I decided to be more precise with how I imbue meaning in objects.” @warrenmaroon

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PHOTOS Courtesy of Magugu House and Hayden Phipps, Courtesy of Goodman Gallery and Anthea Pokroy, Supplied

The iconic Cape Town hotel continues to champion the arts, with a trio of exhibitions unfolding across its grounds: The Foreign Familiar, Interior Weather and a sculpture showcase.

“Mount Nelson is a big part of Cape Town’s cultural story,” says the hotel’s General Manager, Patrick Fisher. “Through collaborations with institutions and artists shaping the continent’s creative landscape, we continue to open our spaces to meaningful dialogue and discovery.”

The Foreign Familiar at Magugu House Cape Town

Co-curated by Thebe Magugu and Julia Buchanan, the exhibition considers the afterlives of objects, images and systems introduced through colonial encounter.

The Foreign Familiar merges fashion with fine art. A collaborative sculpture between Magugu and Mary Sibande fuses Victorian silhouettes with Basotho-blanket textiles, while Sibande’s accompanying works on paper further explore themes of leisure, imagination and Black interiority. Meanwhile, works by Wim Botha destabilise the visual language of Western art history through fragmented sculptural forms. The exhibition extends into Magugu’s Mafeteng capsule collection, inspired by the Basotho blanket and its layered history of colonial exchange and cultural reclamation.

Interior Weather

This unique exhibition, presented in collaboration with Norval Foundation and curated by Carmen Joubert, unfolds throughout Mount Nelson’s communal spaces.

Interior Weather explores how colour and material can shape atmosphere and feeling within a space – in this case, the hotel’s corridors and lounges. Featured artists include Kate Gottgens, Dada Khanyisa, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga and Ephraim Ngatane, to name but a few.

Sculpture Garden

In collaboration with Goodman Gallery, Mount Nelson’s historic gardens play host to a year-long outdoor sculpture exhibition featuring works by internationally celebrated artists, including Yinka Shonibare, William Kentridge, Walter Oltmann and Ghada Amer.

Designed as a walk-through experience, the exhibition invites guests to encounter sculpture through discovery and quiet reflection throughout the property.

Take the art tour

Visitors to Mount Nelson are invited to experience the works first-hand through ARTROUTE’s complimentary weekly art tour, held every Thursday at 17:00. Led by an art-and-design specialist guide, the tour explores all three exhibitions, bringing the stories behind the works to life.

Exhibition dates & times

Interior Weather and Goodman Gallery’s sculpture exhibition will remain on view until February 2027.

Presented within the permanent gallery space at Magugu House Cape Town, The Foreign Familiar forms part of a quarterly exhibition programme that places contemporary art in conversation with Thebe Magugu’s latest collections. The Foreign Familiar is on show until 27 August 2026 and is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00–18:00.

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WORDS Neyani Mphephu PHOTOS Supplied

It is incredible to witness the growth of South African art and talent across different art forms, with artists expressing themselves in unique ways to reach one common goal. Each winner of the 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist Awards pushes the boundaries of their discipline, exploring themes including love, girlhood, African ontologies and transformative performance on a world stage.

The winners will showcase their fascinating bodies of work at the National Arts Festival, to be held in Makhanda from 25 June to 5 July 2026.

“It’s such an important part of the Festival each year, to host the Standard Bank Young Artist cohort’s new work. The 2026 cohort reflects a mix of fresh language and positioning alongside historical grounding; the energy is high and confident. We’re looking forward to innovation, influence and remembering,” notes Artistic Director Rucera Seethal.

The 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist Awards winners include:

Jason Jacobs – Theatre
Presents Kraal

Jason performed Kraal in both a traditional theatre and a sacred matjieshut – a two-part decolonial curation that powerfully unravels inherited trauma and the shadow of the colonial dop system. Originally from the landscapes of Namaqualand, he combines heritage and contemporary storytelling through film and theatre. He will also showcase his screenplay Variations on a Theme alongside his co-writer and co-director Devon Delmoar – a story about an elderly goatherd caught in a reparations scam: a portrait of waiting, endurance and loss as repetition serves as revelation.

Lee-Che Janecke – Dance
Presents MAJAIVAN: A Movement Story of the Life of Lee-Che Janecke

Known globally as Litchi HOV, Lee-Che Janecke is the choreographer, creative director and cultural innovator behind some popular contemporary African dances. MAJAIVAN: A Movement Story of the Life of Lee-Che Janecke is his most personal offering yet: an emotional autobiography told entirely through movement. Lee-Che was the creative architect of Tyla’s Grammy Award-winning Water, which became a global dance awakening. Also noteworthy is his 2025 MTV VMA-nominated work, Push 2 Start, for Best Choreographer.

Gabi Motuba – Jazz
Presents The Sounds of a Black Girl

Gabi Motuba moves through jazz like a philosopher through language – with precision, curiosity and deep conviction. The Sounds of a Black Girl brings a new ensemble to the stage for a performance rooted in improvisation, spiritual jazz and neo-soul, building on the experimental foundations of The Sabbath. A vocalist and composer of rare emotional range, Gabi is redefining what South African jazz can hold.

Manana – Music
Presents Pulchritudinous: The Beauty of the Journey

SAMA-winning Manana arrives at the Festival with his most ambitious live offering to date. Pulchritudinous: The Beauty of the Journey spans his entire artistic arc – from debut EP In the Beginning Was the End to 2025’s OBHM: Full Stop – performed with a full band and horn section. With collaborations stretching from Burna Boy and Usher to Tyla, Cynthia Erivo and Sauti Sol, Manana will perform new arrangements, rare renditions and unreleased material in a once-in-a-lifetime showcase.

Bronwyn Katz – Visual Art
Presents Ta a-b kobab ada kāxu-da, ti khoe-du’e!

Bronwyn Katz’s exhibition Ta a-b kobab ada kāxu-da, ti khoe-du’e! is a quiet act of linguistic retrieval, translating the body’s own cartographies into metal scaffolds, horns and cavities alive with healing herbs, beeswax and conductive wire. Born in Kimberley and based in Cape Town, Katz is a founding member of iQhiya, the celebrated 11-woman collective that has shown at Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens. Her practice is an evolving system of notation: an effort to speak the phonetics of a language not yet fully remembered.

The National Arts Festival runs from 25 June to 5 July 2026. Visit nationalartsfestival.co.za to view the curated programme, which includes showcases by all the 2026 Standard Bank Young Artist Awards winners.

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