• ENTER ART FAIR 2023

    THK GALLERY 

  • THK Gallery will present a curated selection of works on booth 67 by artists Mmangaliso Nzuza, Lulama Wolf, Jake Michael Singer, Driaan Claassen, Abdus Salaam, Dominique Cheminais, Johno Mellish, Nonzuzo Gxekwa, Thomas Wachholz, Karlien van Rooyen and Katarzyna Stefańczyk. Singer features again in this year's sculpture garden with a large scale installation, Profusion Murmur.

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  • The focus for the presentation is rising interest in Modernist aesthetics and forms. While Modernism is seen as an art movement spearheaded by the West, it has a strong African influence, with 'tribal' masks exerting a significant influence, particularly in the early 20th century. Picasso and Matisse, two towering figures in Modernism, were famously inspired by the stylised reduction of African Ceremonial Masks in their search for a new artistic language and aesthetic.

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  • This embrace of Modernist aesthetics by young artists on the continent is viewed through this lens, both as a return to the source, and a reclamation of artistic heritage, speaking as strongly to the perspectives and experiences that inform their work as South Africans, as it does to the Western Historical Canon.

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  • About Lulama Wolf

    About Lulama Wolf

    Lulama Wolf (b. 1993) is a visual artist who lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.

    At the intersection of Neo-Expressionism and Modern African Art, Wolf interrogates the pre-colonial African experience through the contemporary mind by using smearing, scraping, and deep pigment techniques that were used in vernacular architecture, and the patterns created largely by women to decorate traditional African homes.

    History and the proof of life are the core concepts in her work. Where there has rarely prior been reference of life in black spirituality, she counters that narrative by creating two dimensional paintings to embody the simplicity and deep spiritual power of the native eye. Her motivation is both tender and protective of her imaginary world, and her symbolic view of how her world looks into an alternate universe. She is set on creating both a photographic and graphic experience, that morphs and shapeshifts into a higher dimensional plane.

    "My work carries my spirit, before it carries a message. My intuition plays a vital role in the direction I go and then I compartmentalise with what I prioritise. I represent different parts of my self including abstraction, curiosity, mythology, spirituality and introspection. Blackness is vital in my work because it is created by a black woman despite the medium or language it speaks, it is vital because proof of existence is rare in the black community, information is shared but isn’t sustained in ways that are knowledgeable to us right now. I express my yearning for answers and clarity in ways that make my blackness clear even when the work is abstract. My practice embodies subtlety in a form of texture and expression, a curious mix of ambiguity and curiosity. I experiment with different textures and moulds that are formed from the earth."

  • About Mmangaliso Nzuza

    About Mmangaliso Nzuza

    Mmangaliso Nzuza (b.1998 in Empangeni, South Africa) is a self-taught painter currently living and working in Durban. In 2022, Nzuza completed a MA(Hons) in Government, Policy and Society at the University of Edinburgh before returning to South Africa to pursue art.
     
    Growing up in a conservative environment, Nzuza used artmaking as an outlet to negotiate a rich and complex interior life. Initially experimenting with pencil and charcoal, the artist eventually gravitated toward the depth and textural nuance afforded by oil painting.
     
    Led by his own embodied experience, Nzuza explores themes of anxiety, isolation and dissociation. Through the power of intentional colour and vivid form, the artist harnesses his practice as means to navigate the self and other. Working primarily with large-scale oil works, Nzuza has developed a distinctive visual language in rendering his subjects. The act of depicting a figure becomes a study in uncovering an imagined character; visceral texture, swathes of paint and loosely-rendered lines create lucid form and feeling. Nzuza’s figures, in their dulcet tones and abstractions, hum with a significant kinetic energy.
     
    Nzuza has taken part in group exhibitions including RE-KNEW-ED at The Gallery Society in Edinburgh and Sasol News Signatures: Art Beyond Imagination held at Pretoria Art Museum in South Africa. The artist is set to participate in numerous projects in the coming year.
  • About DOMINIQUE CHEMINAIS

    About DOMINIQUE CHEMINAIS

    Dominique Cheminais (b 1984) is a novelist and painter from Cape Town, South Africa. In 2010, she had an exhibition of paintings, titled For Esme with Love and Squalor, at Blank Projects. Shortly afterwards she stopped painting entirely and dedicated herself to writing fiction. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Slim Foot on the Neck of a Dead Lion and Immovable Movers, a book of abstract poetry. Her first novel, The Animal Breaking Through the Flesh, came out in 2015 followed by her second novel Eighty-Four Thousand. Her most recent novel Indefinite Holiday will be published in the US later this year through Pig Roast Publishing. Her novel Many Shallows has provided the inspiration for her new paintings.
     
    Since re-entering the art world, she has shown work on FNB Joburg Art Fair with Stevenson Gallery, participated in a group show presented by Guy Simpson at Under Projects, and done a residency to launch her novel Many Shallows with A4 arts foundation, painting the walls and ceiling of the Goods space at Proto A4.
    Cheminais held a solo exhibition Things Done While Dreaming at THK Gallery in Janurary 2023. Her work will be presented at Enter art Fair, Copehegan in 2023. 
  • About Thomas Wachholz

    About Thomas Wachholz

    Thomas Wachholz (b.1984) explores meanings and associations in the formal characteristics of mundane objects. Using the visual style and ideological foundations of Pop Art, Wachholz creates paintings that appropriate elements of matchboxes and matchbooks. Gathered over the years in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, cinemas and bars, the matchboxes act as ciphers, shifting the artist’s perception from the object to a specific place and time.  Wachholz’s formal abstractions are imbued with coded meanings. By removing information on the original shape and composition of a matchbox, he frees the imagery from its original context, elevating everyday objects to the realm of symbol. 
     
    He creates a dense visual net of formal traces and personal memories, structured through opaque colour fields, where iconic symbols like stars or clouds and grids are contoured by geometric outlines. With their bright colours and clean lines, his conceptually playful paintings reveal ironic connections between both form and function, and sign and signified.
  • About Abdus Salaam

    About Abdus Salaam

    Abdus Salaam is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist from Cape Town, South Africa. Inspired by natural beauty and spirituality, Salaam reveals a sensitivity to three- dimensional spatial expression and the metaphysical connotations inherent in materials. Contemporary in his mystic abstraction, his work is rooted in poetry, calling from a familiar place to a state of peaceful and intensive longing. Moving freely between mediums - from sculpture to painting, video, photographic 'light paintings', poetry, augmented reality, and music- he creates poetic worlds, from the intimate to large-scale installation.
     
    These paintings are from Salaam's The Space Between series, paintings that encourage introspection: inviting a contemplation of the void within and the mysteries of the heart. Salaam's work looks beyond tropes of identity and outer struggle, instead focusing on unity and on the expansive spiritual inner realities of beauty, peace and striving, as they relate to nature and our shared human experience. 
     
    Salaam is represented in collections locally and abroad, including the Afkhami, Drake and Brundyn Collections. He had two sold out solo presentations at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and Abu Dhabi Art in 2022. In 2023 Salaam was finalist in the Art Figura Prize, culminating in an exhibition in Perla Castrum Museum in Schwartzenberg Castle, Germany. In 2023 he was further selected as the artist in residence for the prestigious Institute of Public Architecture's Blockhouse Residency on Governor's Island, New York. In November he will present a solo presentation in the Focus Section of Abu Dhabi Art at the invitation of curator Riccarda Mandrini.
  • About Johno Mellish

    About Johno Mellish

    Johno Mellish (b. 1991) constructs his photographic mise-en-scènes by combining history, memory and imagination. Sourcing imagery from both traditional media channels and vernacular photographs, he composes fictional narratives which mirror our post-truth, fragmented, and data-driven society. 
     
    As a trained filmmaker and cinematographer, Mellish plays on serialism which shapes and informs his visual language. With a love of storytelling, he subverts the practice, creating unexpected juxtapositions and ideas. His ability to capture his audience – creating characters and locations in transition – give his works a certain mysticism. Represented in collections both locally and abroad, he was selected as a focus artist during AKAA 2019 in Paris, where academic Ashraf Jamal described his work, “Mellish is a visual DJ, a master of the remix. If his images seem novel and ‘unexpected’ it is also because, in his world, everything is up for grabs, everything can be reassigned a ‘new’ or different meaning. This process is not only a matter of shifting perspective, it is also the result of the deterritorialisation (Deleuze and Guattari) and defamiliarisation (Brecht) of the images. In Mellish’s photographs nothing possesses its essence, everything – the images content and reason for being – is, in effect, anti-and-post essential. ” 
     
    Mellish is represented in collections around the world, including the Scheryn Collection. His work has been featured in publications including Die Zeit and Metal Magazine. In November 2021 THK Gallery presented a Solo exhibition by Johno Mellish, The Light that Found You, at in the Curiosa Section of Paris Photo. He was one of only 15 projects selected by curator Shoair Mavlian for the section of the fair dedicated to emerging art. In 2023 his work will be presented at Unseen in Amsterdam as a featured photographer.
  • About Trevor Stuurman

    About Trevor Stuurman

    Kimberley born, Stuurman, 28, is an award winning contemporary multimedia visual artist, AFDA graduate with a BA(hons) motion picture & live performance who sees the world through his creative lens and finds beauty in that which reminds him of home - a place that is imbued with colour, love and belonging that reflects Africa. Ever since he burst onto the creative scene scooping the Elle style reporter title in 2012, Trevor has easily cemented himself as a creative force to be reckoned with.
     
    A seasoned explorer, he cites travel as his core inspiration. “the more I leave home, the more I realise the power and currency that home has. And I think that in turn makes me a better storyteller because I am able to find pieces of home wherever I go and then create tangible products”. This essence of belonging inspired him to host his first solo exhibition entitled “home”, a love letter to the Himba women of Namibia that enjoyed a successful run at the hazard gallery in Johannesburg. Subsequently, Trevor has exhibited in a group exhibition at Digitalia; the art and economy of ideas in San Francisco at the museum of the African diaspora. Trevor has curated his own installations; “teleporting into Africa” and “this is home” for the Absolut one source live creative festivals and “this is home” at the Motsepe foundation’s Mandela 100 summit.
     
    Trevor has cemented himself as a co-pilot with brands such as mini as brand ambassador, standard bank, Simon and Mary’s fez hats line, eponymous fashion brand Rich Mnisi, Vlisco and Laurence airline. He has collaborated with artists such as Black Coffee, Ciara, Nelson Makamo, African Rhythm, Dear Ribane and the Carters - Beyoncé and Jay-Z. As Marie Claire magazine’s image maker 2018 recipient and GQ style declared “king of creativity”, Trevor has lived up to these titles having been commissioned in the same year by Disney to interpret Marvel’s Black Panther  with Manthe Ribane as his muse. His work with global humanitarian foundations includes the United Nations, Gates Foundation and the Auma Obama Foundation to document former American president Barack Obama. Described as “a cultural force” by CNN’s African voices feature, Trevor continues to hone in on his creative eye and centres diverse beauty and fashion. He has captured the likes of Teyana Taylor, Naomi Campbell Shanelle Nyasiase, Gigi & Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Imaan Hammam. As a British Vogue contributor, Trevor’s work at arise and afro punk Johannesburg has made him a sought after photographer able to capture inclusive representations of beauty, culture and fashion expression. It is no wonder he believes that “being African is his superpower.” Stuurman is included in the Brooklyn Museum's Africa Fashion exhibition opening, 6 June 2023. 
  • About Nonzuzo Gxekwa

    About Nonzuzo Gxekwa

    Nonzuzo Gxekwa(b. 1981) is a Johannesburg based photographer.  Gxekwa’s 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.
     
    In 2022 she completed a year long residency at the prestigious Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, and her collaborative work, The Mask Project, was exhibited in Hope from Chaos: Pandemic Reflections at the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.
    She is currently on residency at the Künstlerdorf Schöppingen.
  • About Manyatsa Monyamane

    About Manyatsa Monyamane

    Born 1989
    Currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
    Manyatsa Monyamane is a visual storyteller, inspired and influenced by African literature, theatre, and everyday surroundings. Unpacking difficult themes, Monyamane’s photography often brings attention to stories overlooked by the mainstream media. 
     
    Monyamane completed her BTech in Photography in 2016 at the Tshwane University of Technology, and is currently completing a Master of Arts in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand.  She was a finalist at Pop Cap 2016 and, in 2017, a Multi & New Media Merit Award Winner - all for the Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards. In 2018, she was announced as a finalist for the International Women Photographers Award, with a travelling exhibition in Dubai, New Delhi, Tokyo and Paris. A selection of works from the Before and After series premiered at 1-54 London 2020 and 1 54 Online, powered by Christie's. 
  • About Driaan Claassen

    About Driaan Claassen

    Born in Johannesburg in 1991, sculptor Driaan Claassen first studied 3D animation before apprenticing with Otto du Plessis, artist and founder of Bronze Age Foundry. Claassen is currently based in Cape Town, where he opened his own design and fine art studio, Reticence, in 2015. Claassen works primarily in bronze, wood, and wire. Inspired by technology from a young age, he elevates the materiality of his sculptural mediums by merging cutting-edge machinery, traditional craftsmanship, and deep introspection. 
     
    For Claassen, manipulating the physical world has psychological implications. Through the abstracted forms his sculptures take whether solid or fractal, geometric or organic he reflects on the structure of the human mind and thought. He explores the intersection of our consciousness with the outside world, where light and dark meet, positive and negative space, the defined and amorphous, order and chaos. Claassen has created a visual language that juxtaposes shape, colour, texture, and pattern to offer insight into his search for self-knowledge. Claassens work has been exhibited locally and internationally, including at Design Miami, Design Miami/Basel, GUILD Design Fair, PAD London, and Intersect Chicago.
  • About KARLIEN VAN ROOYEN

    About KARLIEN VAN ROOYEN

    Originally hailing from South Africa, ceramic artist Karlien van Rooyen now lives and works in South Australia. Her work is ultimately inspired by her deep connection to the environment, sustainability and respect for First Nations People.
     
    She completed a degree in Contemporary Art at the University of South Australia after six years of environmental activism in North Western Australia. Her work is focussed on creating an understanding of contemporary spirituality in the context of environmental and cultural protection. Karlien is driven by the interrelationship between maker and material along with a teaching, ‘Seeing through feeling’, by the Goolarabooloo people of the Kimberly.  Karlien’s sculptures are concerned with perspectives on social and environmental sustainability. Utilising the visceral and time capturing qualities of clay and memory, Karlien creates stylised ‘termite-mound’ vessels. Karlien has been the recipient of the Minter Ellison Award for Female Artist with Outstanding Creative Potential, Carclew International Project Grant 2018 and was selected for a seven week ceramic residency in 2018 in Jingdezhen, China.
  • About JAKE MICHAEL SINGER

    About JAKE MICHAEL SINGER

    Jake Michael Singer 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 completed his bachelor’s at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2013, after deepening his learning over the course of 2012 at Central Saint Martins in London. 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, and he has further completed two large-scale public sculptures in Johannesburg: Dawn Chorus, part of the RMB Collection in the Think Precinct, and Roarke’s Evacuation Plan, a landmark on the Jo’burg skyline. In 2020, he launched the Emergence Art Prize with THK Gallery, which was supported by RMB. His work has been exhibited at Zeitz MOCAA, and his large installation And all the Birds Flew with a Harsh Scream (Marmara), 2020, was featured in Iziko Museum’s most recent exhibition Matereality. It is now currently on exhibition at the Norval Foundation. In October 2021, Singer completed Bennu Stassis, a site-specific installation in a former Hamman in Istanbul dating from 1477.