Anton Karstel

2013 Standard Bank Young Artist award winner Mary Sibande found herself in the visual arts by chance. After leaving her hometown of Barbeton, Mpumalanga, to study in Johannesburg, she arrived too late to register for the fashion diploma that had been

In 2011, GQ magazine asked Zimbabwean-born mixed-media artist Kudzanai Chiurai what he would consider the most dangerous thing he has ever done with a paintbrush. He answered, ‘I started painting’. Albeit to the point, that response is a

MODUS OPERANDI The career of Candice Breitz reveals a preoccupation with a few major themes: celebrity and the social function of a 'star system' of glamour and aspiration is one of these; the notion of whiteness within a rapidly altering South Afric

Wilhelm Saayman’s work is both bleakly funny and emotionally raw. This breadth of expression, from humourous to moving, is produced with a simple combination of drawing and text that is difficult to categorise. In 2008, the well-known editor o

In 2000 it was estimated that there were in the region of 20 million people all over the globe who had experience some manner of forced migration. Despite the prevalence of the forced migrant’s experience, the theme remains politically and cult

Georgina Gratrix is a painter. She also works in print, collage, pencil crayon and, on one memorable occasion, brightly-coloured pipe cleaners. Multi-media aside, however, Gratrix’s ‘painter-ness’ defines her working method, which c

Simon Gush is an emerging artist working with a wide variety of media. Moving from contracts with potential buyers to meditations on the histories of trade unions, his conceptual concerns are equally varied. His work, however, seldom reads as chaotic

A relentless visual archaeologist of the myriad ideas, values, stories and struggles embedded in the social and physical landscapes of South Africa, David Goldblatt has been photographing the country for over half a century. Recipient of the prestigi

On a dark and stormy day in Tromso, Norway, on the deep-frozen northern dome of the earth, two men in snowsuits waded through the earth’s ice crust. They were on the side of the Arctic Circle invented for the purpose of keeping the earth round,

Platter, linocut porn king and bling provocateur, has become known for his sometimes outrageous and seemingly controversial art of the underbelly. Harry the Crocodile’s lounge-lizard existence, in a world where consumerism has gone mad bad, wil

MODUS OPERANDI KZN-based artist Themba Shibase is known predominantly for his dynamic, experimental painting. Much of his work engages identity politics and, more specifically, explores the complexity of ethnic and racial identities. Working mainly i

One of the most iconic artists in South Africa today, James Webb has established a terrain quite apart from that of his contemporaries. Often described as a 'pioneer', his innovative focus on sound as a distinctive medium has done much to expand the

In ‘One place after another: site-specific art and locational identity’ Miwon Kwon highlights a certain crisis in the continued use of the term ‘site-specific’. Kwon states the term ‘is applied rather indiscriminately to

Part of the irreverent young artist trio Avant Car Guard, Michael MacGarry's work first came to public attention in the late 1990s. From his early theoretical polemics to their practical expression in sculpture, video and photography, MacGarry's wo

This article is updated from Sean O’Toole's 2004 ARTBIO on Edmunds. It contains passages from his original text. Paul Edmunds’s work has played a subtle yet strong role in the development of South African sculpture over the last 15 years.

MODUS OPERANDI ‘I collect short fiction: it’s the same things I like about summing up a story in one painting / illustration - the immediacy, the open-ended devices, the layering, and limited detailing of characters - that I find excitin

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‘I’m addicted to chemicals,’ Jeannette Unite archly quips as she waves her arm in the direction of her store of minerals, ores, dusts and other detritus of the process of industrialised mining in South Africa. But these are clearly