I am a Johannesburg-based contemporary artist who won the Absa L’Atelier Award, one of Africa’s longest-running and most respected art competitions, which in this year celebrates its 40th anniversary. The competition identifies exceptional emerging artists across the African continent, and its previous winners include some of the South African artists whose work I have known and admired for years, including Penny Siopis, Clive van den Berg, Diane Victor, Paul Edmunds, and Marco Cianfanelli.

Winning the Absa L’Atelier Award was a significant turning point in my career. It led to a fully funded two-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris earlier this year, where I was given dedicated studio space and the opportunity to work within an international community of artists. My time there expanded both my artistic practice and my understanding of where a South African artist can position themselves internationally.

I have exhibited in galleries, art fairs and auctions across South Africa, including the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and the RMB Latitudes Art Fair, and held my first solo exhibition at Gallery 2 in 2024, with works sold to collectors in South Africa, London, Amsterdam and the United States.

I have also recently been awarded the Ampersand Foundation Fellowship and Residency in New York, an invitation-only opportunity that will give me a month in New York to research, make work, visit museums and galleries and build international relationships. The Fellowship has a long history of supporting important South African artists and providing them with meaningful international exposure. The likes of the well known Kim Berman, Penny Siopis, Steven Cohen, Diane Victor, Norman Catherine, Karel Nel, Mary Sibande, Bonita Alice, Kim Lieberman, Mongezi Ncaphayi, Walter Oltman, Jeremy Wafer and Banele Khoza are a few who have been selected in previous years.

I have also been awarded a three-month residency with SAFFCA (Southern African Foundation and fellowship for Contemporary Art) in Brussels, based at the historic Abbaye de La Cambre. SAFFCA works specifically to build connections between African and European contemporary art communities through residencies, exhibitions and exchange, and I look forward to another international opportunity to fuel my artistic trajectory.

Alongside my art practice, I head up the marketing department at Latitudes Online and the RMB Latitudes Art Fair, where I lead editorial, marketing and social media. This has given me a second perspective on the creative economy where I play a big part in building platforms that support independent artists, galleries and the wider African art industry.

I see these two sides of my career as complementary. I am building my own career as an artist while also helping build the infrastructure, audiences and international connections around art from Africa.

I believe I was nominated because I have built an exceptional artistic trajectory at a young age: winning the Absa L’Atelier Award, exhibiting nationally and internationally, and earning prestigious art residencies in Paris, New York and Brussels.

My vision is to become an internationally recognised South African artist while using my position to create greater opportunities for artists and creatives in South Africa, and across the continent.

I believe that South Africa has extraordinary creative talent, but that talent needs stronger connections to international opportunities, audiences, collectors and institutions. My experiences in Paris, and now my forthcoming residencies in New York and Brussels, have shown me the value of stepping outside your own environment: you return with new ideas, new relationships and a broader understanding of what is possible.

My time in Paris allowed me to meet artists and cultural leaders from around the world, including people from Sudan, Croatia, Singapore, Malaysia, America, Malta, El Salvador and Switzerland, as well as South Africans who have built lives and careers in Europe. I was invited to meet Sitor Senghor, director of AKAA (Also Known As Africa), the major Paris art fair dedicated to contemporary art from Africa, and was invited to dinner at his home, where we discussed the position of African art internationally.

I also formed personal relationships that became part of my professional journey. A Jewish Parisian family I met during my residency became collectors of my work, including work I created while I was in Paris. Experiences like these showed me that international exchange can directly create relationships, opportunities and audiences for South African artists.

I want to bring that knowledge back.

Through my work at Latitudes, I am already helping connect artists from across South Africa and the African continent to wider audiences, while my own practice gives me the opportunity to represent South African creativity internationally. I want to continue building bridges between Africa and the rest of the world, and ultimately help create a creative economy where talented artists from Africa are exhibiting locally and globally.

I want to go out into the world, learn from it, build relationships, and bring those relationships and ideas home.

Pursued my dreams. Over the past few years, I have built an artistic career that demonstrates what is possible when you trust and take your passion seriously by working hard at creating opportunities for yourself.

Recreational activities

Running, Pilates, Yoga, Hiking, Travel