DIRECTOR'S SELECTION | April 2026
ZARAH CASSIM, Jungles
Oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm
Each work is a personal reflection for Zarah Cassim: a sensitive, romantic memory. Some of her surfaces revel in the flat beauty of the painted mark, inviting the viewer to be seduced by the texture and material of her tool of illusion. Other works evoke a dream-like, ungraspable landscape that threatens to dissolve at any concrete claim over form.
ZARAH CASSIM, Pool III
Oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm
Zarah Cassim is an artist concerned with notions of perception. She uses themediums of painting, photography and sculpture to affect a viewer’s encounter with spatial illusion and reflect the creative filter through which she views the world.
Woven into the theme of unveiling the artifice of reality, is a concern with natural forms and spaces. It is in natural forms that she finds the vehicle for a sense of disorientation: the reflection of a chaotic or absurd world, which marks a breaking point for the human condition. Each work is a personal reflection for Cassim: a sensitive, romantic memory.
ERIN CHAPLIN, Brown Flower
Oil on canvas, 21 x 15 cm
‘I feel like I am living between worlds. Reality, fantasy and my own reality. And time is ticking on in the background. Still life resonates with me because it’s on the clock too. Flowers and fruit can be arranged and painted to live forever but they will die and rot. This comforts me. I don’t want anything to be too perfect or too alive because that’s not realistic.’ Erin Chaplin studies the relationship between the natural and the artificial in her work, striving to capture the poignancy of youth as it fades – fresh fruit and flowers as they slowly rot. In response to the challenging nature of the genre, the floral still-life works are executed in a combination of muted tones and unexpected, contrived colours. The contrast of these tones creates a dynamism in the work that entices and surprises the viewer. In her impasto paintings, a metaphor grows to encapsulate the delicate rawness and vulnerability of the human condition as we grapple with life as it unfolds.
CHONAT GETZ, Napoleon on Marengo
Bronze and wood, 48 x 30 x 12 cm
Chonat Getz works mainly in the media of printmaking and sculpture. Formerly a Mathematics lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand for thirty years, she draws on her expertise in mathematics, elucidating the nexus between mathematics and traditional African craft objects.
OLIVIA MUSGRAVE, Crossing the Night Sky
Bronze, 39 x 59 x 15 cm
Olivia Musgrave's work is drawn both from life and from the imagination where she draws inspiration from Greek mythology, as well as influences from 20th Century Italian sculptors, including Marini, Martini, Greco and Manzu
MBALI TSHABALALA, Ethereal Roots
Mixed media on paper, 50 x 35.5 cm
"My work examines the systems that shape us – societal and governmental structures that claim to enforce, embody or distort order. Through my art, I explore how order can be interpreted, dismantled and reimagined, weaving both personal and universal reflections into this inquiry. As a woman, my experience within these systems is shaped by a constant tension between imposed structures and the resilience required to navigate them. Women, particularly in spaces like Johannesburg, are often tasked with holding together fragile frameworks while adapting to instability and chaos. This duality informs my perspective, where the act of creating becomes both a reclamation and a reimagining of order. Downtown Johannesburg, alive in its contradictions, reflects these dynamics. Fleeting moments of balance and structure emerge from the city’s relentless energy – a harmony found in chaos. This interplay mirrors the rhythms of nature, where fractals, cycles and symmetry reveal a hidden organization that holds chaos and balance in tension. These patterns also speak to a deeper, spiritual order – a profound alignment within the universe where resilience and transformation become acts of quiet power."
- Mbali Tshabalala
MBALI TSHABALALA, Indaleko
Mixed media on paper, 50 x 53 cm
Mbali Tshabalala is a multidisciplinary artist whose work embodies thematic expressions of identity juxtaposed with society’s often invisible expectations. Tshabalala’s work deals with recurring themes related to existential dialogue and an inquiry into external influences that inform her existence as a young South African woman of Xhosa and Swazi descent. Tshabalala is a curator and arts entrepreneur, and her work further explores notions of mental wellness in black societies, particularly in black women. Although historically burdened with many inequalities, black women are often expected to be of limitless resilience, tenacity and to embody ‘The Strong Black Woman’ persona
PHILIPPE UZAC, Laub 24
Oil on canvas, 150 x 90 cm
PHILIPPE UZAC, Scratched Blue
OIL AND GOLD LEAF ON CANVAS, 150 x 90 cm
Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.