Antjie Krog is a South African writer and academic, best known for her Afrikaans poetry, her reporting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and her 1998 book Country of My Skull. In 2004, she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape as Extraordinary Professor.
Country of My Skull is a 1998 nonfiction book by Antjie Krog about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It is based on Krog's experience as a radio reporter, covering the Commission from 1996 to 1998 for the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The book explores the successes and failures of the Commission, the effects of the proceedings on her personally, and the possibility of genuine reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa.
Karen Press is a South African poet and translator.
Brett Murray is a South African artist mostly known for his steel and mixed media wall sculptures. He was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Murray has a master's degree in fine art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, 1989. Referred to by critic Brenda Atkinson as "the dark prince of South African pop (art)", Murray is one of the country's most popular artists, often using easily recognisable media images with the addition of a subversive and bitterly funny twist. Murray's work addresses the wars of the cultures, the clash between Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism, the old and the new South Africas. "With my work I hope to critically entertain. Through satirical and tragic reflections on South Africa, I hope to shift people's perspectives and change people's minds, indulgent, arrogant and pretentious as this might sound," he says. More recently, his work has explored his own personal experiences and identity. Murray was also the founder of the sculpture department at Stellenbosch University.
Berni Searle is an artist who works with photography, video, and film to produce lens-based installations that stage narratives connected to history, identity, memory, and place. Often politically and socially engaged, her work also draws on universal emotions associated with vulnerability, loss and beauty.
Willem Boshoff is one of South Africa's foremost contemporary artists and regularly exhibits nationally and internationally.
Buysile "Billy" Mandindi (1967–2005) was a black South African activist-artist who participated in a landmark protest in Cape Town in 1989, the so-called Purple Rain Protest. Later, still covered with the purple dye that riot police sprayed on protesters, Mandindi created a linocut celebrating the spirit of freedom.
Tracey Rose is a South African artist who lives and works in Johannesburg. Rose is best known for her performances, video installations, and photographs.
Toyin Ojih Odutola is a Nigerian-American contemporary visual artist known for her vivid multimedia drawings and works on paper. Her unique style of complex mark-making and lavish compositions rethink the category and traditions of portraiture and storytelling. Ojih Odutola's artwork often investigates a variety of themes from socio-economic inequality, the legacy of colonialism, queer and gender theory, notions of blackness as a visual and social symbol, as well as experiences of migration and dislocation.
Doreen Southwood is a South African artist, designer, and boutique owner based in Cape Town. She works in a wide variety of media in her artwork, producing sculptures, objects, prints, film, and more, which she often bases on personal experiences and self exploration. Her candidness regarding personal flaws and the cycles of repression and coping that accompany conservative, middle class, Afrikaans upbringing inform much of her work, calling attention to ways in which women are silenced or otherwise repressed in that space.
Sue Williamson is an artist and writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Paa Joe is a Ghanaian sculptor, and figurative palanquin and fantasy coffin carpenter. Joe is considered one of the most important Ghanaian coffin or abebuu adekai artists of his generation. He has been involved in the international art world since 1989, and has been included in major exhibitions in Europe, Japan, and the USA. His fantasy coffins are in the collections and on permanent display in many art museums worldwide, including the British Museum in London, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka and many others as well as the private collections of foreign dignitaries. Joe is building an art academy and gallery to support the community and art students across the globe.
Mary Sibande is a South African artist based in Johannesburg. Her art consists of sculptures, paintings, photography, and design. Sibande uses these mediums and techniques to help depict the human form and explore the construction of identity in a postcolonial South African context. In addition, Sibande focuses on using her work to show her personal experiences while living through Apartheid. Her art also attempts to critique stereotypical depictions of women, particularly black women.
Jane Alexander is one of the most celebrated artists in South Africa. She is a female artist best known for her sculpture, The Butcher Boys. She works in sculpture, photomontages, photography and video. Alexander is interested in human behavior, conflicts in history, cultural memories of abuse and the lack of global interference during apartheid. Alexander's work is relevant both in the current Post- Apartheid social environment in South Africa and abroad.
Elizabeth Crawford is an American painter who obtained her bachelor's degree of Fine Arts from the College of Art at Washington University in St. Louis in 1982.
Susana Solano is a Spanish sculptor Solano is known for her large-scale sculpture, often made of sheet metal and wire mesh. She lives and works in Barcelona.
Nina Chanel Abney is an American artist, based in New York. She was born in Harvey, Illinois. She is an African American contemporary artist and painter who explores race, gender, pop culture, homophobia, and politics in her work.
Leslie Wayne is a visual artist who lives and works in New York. Wayne is best known for her "highly dimensional paintings".
Jo Ractliffe is a South African photographer and teacher working in both Cape Town, where she was born, and Johannesburg, South Africa. She is considered among the most influential South African "social photographers."
Jack Shainman Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in New York City. The gallery was founded by Jack Shainman and his then-partner Claude Simard (1956—2014) in 1984 in Washington, D.C. The gallery has a focus on artists from Africa, East Asia, and North America.
