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.
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.
Irma Stern was a major South African artist who achieved national and international recognition in her lifetime.
Peter Clarke was a South African visual artist working across a broad spectrum of media. He was also a writer and poet.
Tracey Rose is a South African artist who lives and works in Johannesburg. Rose is best known for her performances, video installations, and photographs.
Gavin Rain is a contemporary South African artist, working primarily in acrylic, best known for his Neo-Pointillist style paintings.
Nandipha Mntambo is a South African artist who has become famous for her sculptures, videos and photographs that focus on human female body and identity by using natural, organic materials.
Ruth Sacks is a South African artist who lives and works in Johannesburg. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) for Social Change at Fort Hare University. Sacks holds a PhD (Arts) from the University of the Witwatersrand where she was a fellow at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). Her third artist book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under Seas, was launched in 2013. She is a laureate of the HISK in Ghent. She was one of the facilitators of the artist-run project space the Parking Gallery, hosted by the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) in Johannesburg. Ruth Sacks' work has been presented internationally in venues such as the African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennalein 2007, the ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe in 2011 and the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi in 2017.
Maria Magdalena Laubser was a South African painter and printmaker. She is generally considered, along with Irma Stern, to be responsible for the introduction of Expressionism to South Africa. Her work was initially met with derision by critics but has gained wide acceptance, and now she is regarded as an exemplary and quintessentially South African artist.
Sanell Aggenbach is a South African artist living and working in Woodstock, Cape Town. Using painting, printmaking, and sculpture, her work addresses the relationship between history and private narratives, with a sense of ambiguity. Her work also explores the processes of nostalgia and historical myth-making, often incorporating the playful, disarming, and absurd to draw the viewer into discussions of darker subjects. She has a unique style of combining traditional painting techniques with sculptural elements, as well as typically feminine crafts such as sewing and tapestry.
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.
Kathryn Smith is a South African artist, curator, and researcher. She works on curatorial projects, scholarly research, and studio practices, while her art deals with uncertainty, risk, and experimentation. She works in Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Her works have been exhibited and collected in South Africa and elsewhere. In 2006, she was appointed senior lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch and head of the Fine Arts Studio Practice program. She took a break in 2012/2013 to read for an MSc at the University of Dundee.
Julia Rosa Clark is a South African contemporary artist and educator known for her "graphically complex, textually coded and colour-rich paper installations."
Nontsikelelo "Lolo" Veleko is a South African photographer most noted for her depiction of black identity, urbanisation and fashion in post-apartheid South Africa.
Sue Williamson is an artist and writer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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.
Jeannette Unite is a South African artist who has collected oxides, metal salts and residues from mines, heritage and industrial sites to develop paint, pastel and glass recipes for her large scale artworks that reflect on the mining and industrial sites where humanity's contemporary world is manufactured.
Lisa Brice is a South African painter and visual artist from Cape Town. She lives in London and cites some of her influences as her experiences growing up in South Africa during a time of political upheaval, and from time spent living and working in Trinidad.
Claudette Schreuders is a South African sculptor and painter operating out of Cape Town, South Africa. She is known mainly for her carved and painted wooden figures, which have been exhibited independently and internationally in galleries and museums. She is the first South African artist to have a sculpture acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Schreuders has been a finalist for both the Daimler Chrysler Award and the FNB Vita Art Prize, which is South Africa's version of the Turner Prize.
Senzeni Marasela is a South African visual artist born in Thokoza who works across different media, combining performance, photography, video, prints, textiles and embroidery in mixed-medium installations. She obtained a BA in Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1998. Her work is exhibited in South Africa, Europe and the United States, and part of local and international collections, including Museum of Modern Art or the Newark Museum and is referenced in numerous academic papers, theses journal and book publications.
