Light + Space II

Abdus Salaam

Abdus Salaam (b. 1989) is a visual artist who lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.

Salaam is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist inspired by natural beauty, ecology and spirituality. Salaam reveals a sensitivity to three- dimensional spatial expression and the metaphysical connotations inherent in nature, materials, forms and colours. Contemporary in his mystic abstraction, his work is rooted in poetry, calling from a familiar place to a state of peaceful and intensive longing, using materials to explore the immaterial and always working alone to imbue his intention into his work. 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.

His work is a cultural fusion of Western, Eastern and African sensibilities, shaped by his international coming of age and rooted in the dramatic landscapes around Cape Town, where his earliest memories were shaped on a farm, spending time painting and sculpting with natural materials in the mountains of South Africa with his mother.

Salaam is represented in collections locally and abroad, including the Mohammed Afkhami and EKARD Collections. He held two sold out solo presentations in 2022, both at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and Abu Dhabi Art 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 selected as the artist in residence for the prestigious Institute of Public Architecture’s Blockhouse Residency on Governor’s Island, New York. In November 2023 he presented a second sold out presentation at Abu Dhabi Art.

In 2024, Salaam completed a residency at the prestigious Nirox Foundation, followed by a critically acclaimed exhibition. In June 2024, he completed the Giorgio Angeli Residency in Pietrasanta, Italy.

Nina Turok Shapiro

Nina Turok Shapiro (b. 2000, South Africa) is a Cape Town based artist who works predominantly with silk-screen printing and photography. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2023.

Before her university studies, Shapiro spent half of 2019 travelling in Europe and worked, among other things, as a youth reporter in Switzerland interviewing artists whose work involved aspects of social and environmental activism. It was this experience that provided the impetus to pursue a career in Fine Art.

Shapiro’s artistic praxis explores nostalgia and memory in relation to her experience as a second- generation South African in the Jewish diaspora. She reimagines her family archives through performative photography, silk-screen printing, video art, and colour selection.

From the silence of previous diasporic generations emerges a vacuum in the archive. Much is left to the imagination in the interpretation of ancestral personal experiences. Shapiro’s praxis emerges as an attempt to navigate the liminality intrinsic to a diasporic identity – an identity that is intertwined with the enigmatic histories and cultures of her ancestors, together with the artist’s contemporary experiences in modern-day South Africa.

Silk-screen printing allows for the creation of a new form of documentation and image-making in which Shapiro combines and intertwines herself and her family’s history. Using her digitised archive and her own constructed photographs, she zooms in on specific moments that help form a narrative. This allows for pixelation, a loss of information, and abstraction when these zoomed-in moments become silk-screen prints. The boundaries between analogue and digital processes become blurred, resulting in a memory landscape where moments of combining different media become frames of parallel narratives.

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 mold that are formed from the earth."

Driaan Claassen

Driaan Claassen (b. 1991) in Johannesburg, South Africa is renowned for his deep exploration of the human psyche through intricate and thought-provoking sculptures. His artistic journey began with a fascination for 3D animation, which eventually led to an apprenticeship with the esteemed artist Otto du Plessis at the Bronze Age Foundry. This experience profoundly shaped Claassen’s unique approach, blending traditional craftsmanship with modern technology to create works that are both intellectually engaging and visually compelling.

Working with a diverse range of materials, including wood, wire, and bronze, Claassen’s sculptures seamlessly integrate material innovation with psychological depth. His work reflects a deep fascination with themes of consciousness, order, and chaos, often employing a meticulous combination of ancient techniques and cutting-edge technology. Through this approach, he challenges viewers to contemplate the intricate interplay between the material world and the inner workings of the mind.

Claassen’s sculptures have been showcased in prestigious galleries and art fairs worldwide, including Design Miami, Design Days Dubai, and AIYA Collectible. His solo exhibitions, such as Forms of Silence at AIYA Bureau in 2022, Order and Chaos at EBONY/CURATED in 2021, and Complex Systems at THK Gallery in 2023, have solidified his status as a leading young contemporary artist. His innovative exploration of consciousness has earned him residencies at the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and Quartier am Hafen in Cologne.

Turiya Magadlela

Turiya Magadlela (b.1978) is a South African artist who employs a unique exploration of textiles to address issues that shape a gendered and racialized society. She sews and embroiders nylon pantyhose, correctional service uniforms, prison sheets, and other conceptually loaded fabrics to address societal issues through conceptual investigation, exploring profound themes of racial and sexual discrimination, femininity, and eroticism. Her use of tights serves not only as a medium for creativity but also as a powerful symbol, drawing attention to skin colour and the complex social landscape of South Africa, employing art-making techniques traditionally associated with femininity and craft.

Magadlela's art goes beyond mere visual representation. In live performances within the exhibition space, she sews tights on a sewing machine, offering a poignant commentary on labor conditions, gender disparities, and the enduring legacies of sexual and racial violence and abuse. In her latest series, Magadlela creates awe-inspiring tapestries from tights, transforming exhibition spaces into immersive environments reminiscent of cave-like structures. Through these monumental works, she invites viewers to contemplate the deeper implications of race, gender, and identity. These tapestries, akin to square keyholes of voyeurism, are stretched on wooden frames, inviting viewers to peer into a world fraught with historical and contemporary struggles. Prepare to be transported as Turiya Magadlela's artistry challenges and inspires.

Magadlela studied at the University of Johannesburg and Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. Since winning the FNB Art Prize in 2015, and shortlisted for the Prix D’ Prat Prize, she has shown at the 2016 Armory Show and exhibited in Berlin, USA and Ghana. Her work was included in the acclaimed group show “Blue Black,” curated by artist Glenn Ligon at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. Magadlela cuts, stitches, and folds her materials across wooden frames to create multilayered abstract compositions. Drawing from her experiences as a Black woman and a mother as well as from Black South African history, Magadlela’s works serve as vibrant celebrations of Black womanhood while simultaneously suggesting the implicit eroticization of and violence against the body.

Jake Michael Singer

Jake Michael Singer (b. 1991, Johannesburg) is a transdisciplinary artist coalescing sculpture, photography, and painting, in a practice centred around materiality, myth and catharsis.

Most recently Singer has focused on large scale site-specific installations at the Pyramids of Giza, Egypt and in the historically significant edifices of Istanbul Yedikule Hisarı (during the 17th Istanbul Biennal, 2022) and Küçük Mustafa Pasa Hamamı (2021).

Institutional exhibitions include Zeitz MOCAA, Norval Foundation, Nirox Foundation, Kampala Biennale, Dakart, South-African-National-Gallery, DTIC Dubai, Nirox Foundation and Istanbul Biennale (forthcoming).

Solo exhibitions include Gallery Tiny, New York (2020), THK Gallery, Cape Town (2019), Matter Gallery Toronto (2018), Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg (2018), 50 Golbourne, London (2017), Punt WG, Amsterdam (2017), Hazard Gallery, Johannesburg (2016).

Singer holds a degree from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town (2013) and has studied at Central Saint Martins, London. He was the recipient of the Edoardo Villa Foundation Grant in 2016 and 2017, the youngest artist to receive this, and the only artist to receive it twice. Permanent public sculptures include ‘Dawn Chorus’ (2019), Johannesburg; ‘Roark’s Evacuation Plan’ (2016), Johannesburg and Flume, Istanbul (forthcoming). Singer has completed residencies in Istanbul, Amsterdam, Kampala and Cologne.

Singer and THK Gallery co-founded the Emergence Art Prize with Rand Merchant Bank in support of emerging artists in South Africa.

Natnael Ashebir

Nina Turok Shapiro

Jake Michael Singer

Abdus Salaam

Driaan Claassen

Lulama Wolf

Lulama Wolf

Abdus Salaam

Nina Turok Shapiro

Lulama Wolf

Driaan Claassen

Turiya Magadlela

Jake Michael Singer

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