Artists we work with — from the continent and its diaspora.

"My recent body of work explores African hair as identity, culture, memory, and history. Growing up, I saw certain hairstyles treated as too traditional, too much, or simply unacceptable. That made me question how we became so disconnected from something that once carried meaning within our communities. Through portraiture, I look at how Africans wore and understood their hair before colonization, and what those hairstyles represented, identity, age, status, spirituality, and belonging."

• oil on canvas
• portraiture
• hair

Alagwu Henry is a figurative artist based in Lagos whose work delves into the intersections of emotion, memory, storytelling, and contemporary social realities through portraiture and the human figure.

• oil on canvas
• portraiture
• figuration

Anele Turdon is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across sculpture, painting, mural practice, and installation. Rooted in clay and natural materials, her practice explores memory, healing, materiality, and African feminist understandings of embodied knowledge. Through research-driven experimentation, she examines how earth-based materials can become catalysts for reflection, connection, and community engagement.

• SCULPTURE
• PAINTING
• MURAL
• INSTALLATION
• CLAY
• NATURAL MATERIALS

Luthuli's work explores the idea of "inner peace" — observing and analysing people as they move through stress and depression, and the negative impact it has on their surroundings and atmosphere.

• Charcoal
• Acrylic
• Painting

My style is defined by large brushstrokes and an unexpected bold colour palette. My subject matter primarily focuses on a depiction of human faces with bold smiles; I use my bold artistic style to capture the expressive nature of a smile.

• Digital painting
• Portraiture
• Colour

Bongani Vincent is a Cape Town–based visual artist whose Afro-surrealist practice explores identity, spirituality, and the subconscious. Originally trained in directing and cinematography at AFDA Johannesburg, Bongani brings a cinematic approach to painting, blending oil and mixed media to create dreamlike figures and mythic narratives. After transitioning fully to painting during the pandemic, their work has been exhibited at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery and featured in ShelfLife magazine. Through their independent studio, The Haus of OOO, Bongani continues to expand the language of contemporary African surrealism.

• AFRO-SURREALISM
• OIL
• MIXED MEDIA

Bontle Ntshingila is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer whose practice explores identity, heritage, and the body as a living canvas. Working across photography, oil painting, and performance, she creates evocative portraits that merge contemporary visual language with African cultural symbolism. Through her ongoing AVA Series and portraiture, Ntshingila examines identity as fluid, ancestral, and deeply personal. Her work incorporates elements such as body paint, head-wraps, geometric forms, and symbolic objects, drawing inspiration from African traditions while reinterpreting them through modern photography, digital aesthetics, and painterly techniques. Photography serves as the foundation of her creative process, with captured images evolving into richly layered oil paintings. Each work transforms individual subjects into timeless archetypes, exploring themes of memory, ritual, resilience, and belonging. By juxtaposing the ancient with the contemporary, Ntshingila invites viewers to reflect on the ways culture is continuously reimagined and carried forward. Through both lens and brush, her practice celebrates the evolving nature of African identity, honouring heritage while embracing transformation.

• PHOTOGRAPHY
• OIL
• PERFORMANCE

"I create works of art that are decorative and sometimes functional. The interconnectivity of clay binds us to the past and moulds us for an imagined future through the context of shape and form. My mural and sculptural work lean on the abstract aesthetic."

• ceramics
• sculpture
• mural

• Soft pastel
• Works on paper
• Portraiture

Hammed Kehinde, also known as Kehinde Art, is a Lagos-based visual artist who works primarily with ballpoint pen, painting, and traditional mediums. His expressive artworks draw inspiration from African culture, identity, and everyday experiences.

• ballpoint pen
• painting
• drawing

Jibril Linjoum Achu is a Cameroonian-born mixed media artist whose practice combines personal narrative, social commentary, and sustainability. Largely self-taught in childhood before later training under renowned artist Anguh Walters, he developed an experimental approach using found and recycled materials. Now based in South Africa, his work blends collage, paper, magazines, and acrylic to explore identity, fashion, and the resilience of everyday people. Through richly textured compositions, Jibril transforms discarded materials into powerful reflections on African identity, environmental responsibility, and social empowerment. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Africa and Europe.

• MIXED MEDIA
• COLLAGE
• ACRYLIC
• SUSTAINABILITY

Lebogang Moabi's practice is a dialogue between nature, ancestry and the human experience. Influenced by Bantu traditions, African methodologies and the rhythms of everyday life, Moabi explores themes of connection, sustainability and transformation. Working across charcoal, acrylic, found and organic materials, Moabi creates drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations that bring traditional influences into conversation with contemporary perspectives. Each work reflects a commitment to uncovering beauty in overlooked and discarded elements, transforming them into narratives that challenge societal norms and celebrate resilience. Through the practice, Moabi invites viewers to pause, reflect and engage with the layers of meaning embedded within the natural world.

• Mixed media
• Organic materials
• Painting
• Installation

Lebogang Thamaga is a mixed media artist whose practice uses portraiture and figurative imagery to tell contemporary Black and African stories. Rooted in the South African context, his work examines the enduring impact of colonial ideologies on social structures and identity, while advocating for the emancipation and decolonisation of the Black mind. Through his art, Thamaga challenges distorted historical narratives and encourages viewers to question inherited systems of knowledge, reclaiming African perspectives and celebrating the power of self-defined cultural identity.

• MIXED MEDIA
• PORTRAITURE
• FIGURATIVE

Lesekgo Reayabetswe Shele is a 23-year-old trans man, a member of the LGBTQI community and a multidisciplinary artist. His practice bridges visual storytelling, advocacy, and education, creating accessible art rooted in care and empathy. Through posters, workshops, and collaborative projects, he makes complex ideas easier to grasp, ensuring that art remains a tool for dialogue and collective empowerment.

• Digital illustration
• Advocacy
• Multidisciplinary

Mncedisi Mkhize is a contemporary painter whose figurative works explore Black identity, with a particular focus on the experiences, resilience, and beauty of Black youth across diverse social settings. Working primarily in acrylic, he employs a distinctive palette in which magenta symbolizes strength, diversity, and the ongoing journey of self-discovery. Central to Mkhize's practice is an expressive process of mark-making and layered surfaces, reflecting the construction and deconstruction of identity. These textured compositions mirror the imperfections and richness of lived experience. Recurring Wi-Fi symbols integrated into his subjects' garments serve as a powerful metaphor for the invisible frequencies that connect people across time, space, and emotion. Through this visual language, Mkhize invites viewers to reflect on identity, belonging, and the enduring power of human connection.

• Painting
• Figurative
• Identity

Mukhethwa Mukinindi is an independent contemporary artist working in acrylic and oil pastel. Raised in the township communities of Itsoseng Eskom and Cosmo City, his practice is inspired by everyday township life and seeks to challenge stereotypes by celebrating its beauty, resilience, culture, and creativity. Through vibrant colours, bold patterns, and expressive forms, Mukhethwa captures both the struggles and triumphs of these communities. His striking compositions are designed to evoke emotion and draw viewers into a fresh, uplifting perspective on contemporary South African township life.

• ACRYLIC
• OIL PASTEL

My work explores identity, energy, and connection through a practice informed by personal upbringing and spiritual awareness. I am interested in how culture and lived experience shape the ways we come to understand ourselves, our bodies, and our relationship to the world around us. Working across multidisciplinary practices, I use earth-based materials to build a visual language that feels elemental, intuitive, and embodied.

• Linocut
• Monotype
• Printmaking

Oluwaseyi Emmanuel Adeyemo is a mixed media artist whose practice explores the relationship between identity, culture, humanity, and the Creator. Working with textiles, thread, found plastics, pastel, and pen, he combines traditional techniques with contemporary themes to create vibrant, thought-provoking works. Inspired by faith and lived experience, his art invites viewers to reflect on humanity's divine origins and the enduring connection between the spiritual and everyday life.

• MIXED MEDIA
• TEXTILE
• PASTEL

"My work is a record of learning to live inside my own head — isolation turned into language, and art turned into the closest thing I have to a home."

• painting
• ink on paper

Retshidisitswe is a contemporary South African artist whose charcoal practice preserves and celebrates the enduring heritage of the Basotho people. Through intimate portraits, landscapes, and symbolic compositions, the artist explores themes of identity, spirituality, family, stewardship, and the deep relationship between people and the land. Working primarily with charcoal, Retshidisitswe transforms a material historically connected to communal fires, storytelling, and ancestral memory into a powerful medium for documenting resilience, belonging, and cultural continuity. Their ongoing bodies of work, Leruo la Basotho and Modisa ea Molemo, reflect on the true wealth of Basotho culture; found not only in livestock, but in wisdom, faith, dignity, and traditions passed from generation to generation. Rather than depicting heritage as something confined to history, Retshidisitswe presents it as a living presence that continues to shape contemporary life. Their work invites viewers to reflect on the enduring richness of Basotho identity and its place within contemporary African art.

• CHARCOAL
• DRAWING

A self-taught artist from Mbabane, Eswatini. Tinashe creates a connection between the multicultural experiences of their movements across continents and their impact on steadfast pan-Africanist and social justice motivations. The spiritual and physical meet to connect historic and contemporary timelines as they use their work to channel and honor our history and reverence for life.

• OIL
• PRINT

Tinashe Mazambara is a South African self-taught digital artist, journalist, and founder of Black Comb, an Afrocentric design studio. Drawing on his Zimbabwean heritage and Johannesburg upbringing, his work reimagines contemporary African identity through bold colour, texture, and symbolism. His practice challenges inherited narratives of self-rejection, inviting viewers to embrace the beauty, resilience, and future of African identity.

• DIGITAL ART
• JOURNALISM
• DESIGN

Zama Magubane is a Johannesburg-based South African fine artist and cultural practitioner whose work explores African spirituality, identity, memory, and embodiment through large-scale figurative drawing and mixed media. A Fine Arts graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, her research-driven practice draws on African knowledge systems, examining ritual, womanhood, ancestry, and the Black body as sites of history and cultural continuity. Magubane has collaborated with brands including New Balance, Reebok, NikNaks South Africa, and Potrends, and her work bridges contemporary art, cultural research, and social reflection.

• DRAWING
• MIXED MEDIA
• FIGURATIVE