Essops and Kukama Bank Young Artist Award

Husain and Hasan Essop, more commonly referred to as ‘the Essop twins’, have won the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for 2014.  The performance artist Donna Kukama has also been named as the Performance Artist of the year.

The Award, perhaps one of the most prestigious local accolades, is given annually to young South African artists ‘who are either on the threshold of national acclaim, or whose artistic excellence has enabled them to make international breakthroughs.’

The Essop’s photography-based practice is heavily influenced by their Islamic faith.  In an interesting twist of the underlying beliefs of Islam, and the representation of the body in art, the two decided only to have their their own images appearing in their work.

Their most recent solo exhibition in South Africa, ‘Remembrance’, at the Goodman gallery last year explored ‘the notion of memory, specifically in relation to the history and practice of religion. In a series of 360º panoramic photographs, each consisting of hundreds of individual photographs meticulously stitched together, they explore the history of various landscapes’.

Donna Kukama is a Johannesburg-based multimedia artist who specializes in performance, video, text, and sound installations. She attained a postgraduate degree from the Ecole Cantonale d’art du Valais in Sierre (Switzerland) in 2008. Her exhibition entitled ‘Unacceptable’ was shown at blank projects in 2012.

According to the organisers ‘apart from a cash prize, each of the winners will be featured on the Main programme of the 2014 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (3 – 13 July 2014), where they will be given the opportunity to develop and première new works.’