Lehlogonolo Mashaba 

(b. 1983 Kwa-Thema, Johannesburg)

Lehlogonolo Mashaba is a South African artist with an extensive background in printmaking. After obtaining  a certificate in design and printmaking in 2004 from the Artist Proof Studio, South Africa, he went on to work collaboratively there. Specialising in intaglio, relief, monotype and silkscreen he has assisted in print making for top established artists in South Africa.

Mashaba won the Standard Bank Grahamstown Festival's Picasso in Africa mural competition in 2006. Other public artwork includes a painting completed for Pick n Pay at Maponya Mall which was later enlarged and placed on a billboard in Soweto.

Lehlogonolo Mashaba’s work is centered on text. One of the running motifs in Mashaba’s work is his continuous use of cell phone texts. He uses texts from people’s text (sms) messages.

"I have always felt learning has been laboursome and slow process to grasp on hence I use text to construct/deconstruct my figures(myself). In that case I combine different information and words from different texts source most especially the Bible as it is to me the ultimate source of knowledge yet the most ambiguous. I swop around the body and text, having text on the body and using text to create bodiesfigures".

Mashaba not only draws from his personal archive, he also draws influence from the media by extracting texts from newspaper articles.

"My artwork plays on the tools of communication merging imagery and text. The interest in theology, technology, books/reading, and Biology set a base for my art making process. We as human beings are a product of what we eat (food/words)"

Selected exhibitions, awards and residencies

2017
Summer Exhibition, Group show at Everard Read, London, UK

2014 
Marking the Map at Lizamore & Associates Gallery, Johannesburg
No Man’s Art Pop-up Gallery, Cape Town.
Nr.10 of Top 25 South African Artists You Should Know Now, House & Leisure

2013
Noise at Lizamore & Associates Gallery, Johannesburg.
South African Voices: A New Generation Of Printmakers at Washington Printmakers Gallery, Washington D.C. USA.
Works on Paper at Gallery MoMo, Johannesburg.

2010
Residency at the Rendezvous Art Project, Elisabeth Pons Studio, Paris (France)

2009
Top 76 Artists for the Thami Myele Fine Art Award.

2008
Residency at Experimental Printmaking Institute, Lafayette College, Easton, PA (USA)
Artist Image Resource, Pittsburg, PA (USA)

2006
Grahamstown festival, Picasso in Africa Mural Competition (First Prize)