Synaptic

Nonzuzo Gxekwa (b. 1981) is a Johannesburg based photographer. Her approach to photography favours the everyday over the spectacular; sharing intimate moments by focusing the camera on what is around her as well as on herself. Whether photographing in the street or in the studio, her work explores the human condition in subtle and beautiful ways. Her optic is loving. It’s not simply that she chooses to focus on moments of self love—the way people occupy themselves—but that in the taking, her subjects are never wholly circumscribed. There is always space to manoeuvre. Collaboration is a crucial part of her practice, and she regularly works with photographers and other creatives in Johannesburg and further afield.

Nonzuzo’s work was included in Presence: Five Contemporary African Photographers at the Photographer’s Gallery in London from July – August 2021. In November 2021 Nonzuzo was selected for Self-Addressed, organised by Kehinde Wiley and Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles. For this landmark exhibition, Wiley invited a selection of contemporary African artists to produce a self-portrait. Together these portraits presented a new exploration of identity, perception, and self-regard within the global stage. She was also accepted to complete a year long residency at the prestigious Jan van Eyck Academie.

In 2022 her collaborative work, The Mask Project formed part of the exhibition Hope from Chaos: Pandemic Reflections at the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

Jake Michael Singer (b. 1991) experiments with a broad range of disciplines from photography to works on paper and commands an exquisite mastery of sculpture. Drawing inspiration from the emergent behaviour of flocking birds, where the individual is subsumed in the whole; and meditating on the timeless monumentality of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, his Murmurations series speaks to our time. Meticulously constructed, using up to sixteen thousand meters of marine grade stainless steel for a single sculpture, the Murmurations series establishes his position as one of the leading young sculptors from Africa. 

Singer has held solo shows in Africa and America and been part of over 60 group shows since graduating in 2013. He was recognised by the Eduardo Villa Foundation Grant both in 2016 and 2017, the youngest sculptor yet awarded this. His work features in private collections in South Africa, Germany, Greece, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.