ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Thokozani Mthiyane is a Johannesburg based artist and cofounder of The Enso Circle. After finishing
school, Mthiyane spent his free time in the studios of painters Sfiso KaMkame and Thami Jali in Cleremont
Township, close to Durban, where he grew up. His time spent learning from artists Sfiso KaMkame and
Thami Jali has greatly inspired him.

With the Madcap’s Educational Theatre Company, Mthiyane gained experience in children’s theatre. He
then held his first solo exhibition at the Flat Gallery in Durban. Mthiyane is a multidisciplinary artist who talks as confidently about his work as an expressionist painter as he does about his time as a trilingual poet in France and as a musician as he does about his work as an expressionist painter and as a dancer touring Holland with the Inzalo dance company.

He has exhibited at the Centre for humanities research, and has exhibited at African noise foundation. He
developed his signature act of performing French poetry translated into Zulu in Cave Poésie in Toulouse,
Southern France. He returned to France in 2001 and again in 2004 to perform the poems of Jacques
Prévert in the small town of Heroville near Normandy.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The paintings are my young vision of table mountain and cape town’s light and happiness it gives us in shape colour and sound…enjoy them… Peter Webber, international artist… Nasa put me on insight unmanned spaceship to mars…. exciting

ARTIST STATEMENT

In ‘ABANDONED’, Guto Bussab uses oil on canvas to explore the fine line between presence and disappearance. This series of abstract expressionism unfolds across heavily textured, plaster-like impasto surfaces, against which silhouettes flicker in and out of view. Bussab’s signature touch is characterised by throwing paint and turpentine, repeatedly rotating the canvas between landscape and portrait orientation, and ultimately manoeuvring the heartbeat onto canvas.

Bussab’s distinctive style is evident in the tapping and beating of blobs which cement the heartbeat that distinguishes the work. Rendered only as outlines that echo the human form rather than its fullness, simple symbols such as triangles, hearts, circles, and root-like tendrils convey complex meanings across the canvases like fragments of an unrecoverable memory. They mark and carry the intentional and the unresolved like two hands.

Across the series, the tension between chaos and stillness becomes palpable. Red lines slash through eroded white grounds; delicate gold contours stand before suspended root forms; scattered shapes accumulate into psychological weather. Even when the figure disappears entirely, its absence presses against the surface like breath on a window.

The title ‘ABANDONED’ acts as a lens through which each work resonates differently. It represents the abandonment not only of the self, but also of thoughts, emotional interiors and identities in the process of formation. Bussab’s canvases resemble the residue of private storms and public wars: the moment after rupture, and the moment before rebuilding.

ABANDONED is a body of work that reveals inner worlds left raw and unguarded. In these textured, spacious and fragmented scenes, Bussab sketches the outline of a self navigating its own erosion and the quiet, persistent desire to endure beyond it.

words by: Thandolwethu Gulwa

ARTIST STATEMENT

Cape Town-based artist Buhle Nkalashe has always been interested in his African cultural heritage, the visual elements associated with it, and how it is evolving in response to a developing and changing world. Nkalashe uses his paintings to explore traditional patterns and contribute to more contemporary versions of cultural expression.

As events and trends come and go, we are constantly influenced and as a result, evolving. For this reason, even sacred cultural practices and aesthetics change over time.

“I chose to portray many of the figures facing backward. This is to show that they are leaving a legacy far more important than money – rather an evolution of new ideas. They inspire a different outlook on life in the way that we view ourselves and contribute to our culture. To me, they are looking at something far greater than their expectations and are moving toward that light to reveal what they are destined for,” says Nkalashe.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My name is Ashley Algeria Ferreira otherwise known as That’s Ash, born & raised in the East of Johannesburg, I now call Cape Town my home.

My art style is inspired by my favourite art genre, POP Art. If has taught me that one can give everyday objects new meanings.

My true passion blossomed when I created his character, Bare Bear.
From the first sketch, I knew it was the one. Bare Bear can capture every sense of feeling in any given moment.
My 7 Deadly Sins collection takes Bare Bear on a descent into

ARTIST STATEMENT - January 2026 Exhibition

This collection exists mid-movement.

Familiar printed images on metal, then painted, interrupted, and reworked.

Fused with Origami Butterflies in an Infinity Loop, the rhythmic section, form in perpetual motion, folding time back on itself.

Transformation doesn’t end, it repeats, mutates, evolves.

Interlaced with a layered South African Flag, thousands of Origami Butterflies function as a story still being written. Built up, fractured, and replayed, it reflects a nation and an identity in flux, complex, unfinished, and alive.

These works hold tension between past and present, structure and improvisation.

The ghosts remain, not as nostalgia, but as echoes that push the composition forward.

There is no final note.

Only continuation.

ARTIST STATEMENT - August 2025 Exhibition

The Cosmos

Derived from the Greek word Kosmos, meaning “order,” the inspiration for this collection comes from the cosmic interplay of chaotic colors and manic energy that ultimately finds harmony and balance. It’s a journey that reflects both the past and the future, weaving them together in unison.

When do you know you’re done?

This question became increasingly relevant over time. In researching Pablo Picasso, I discovered his philosophy: a piece is never truly finished until it finds a new home. He would continue painting, layering more onto the canvas, to the point where some of his works were caked in paint. Inspired by this perspective, the birth of this universe felt much like the Big Bang—an explosion of creativity.

Windmills of the Mind: 7 Deadly Sins

A Capetonian Guinness World Record holding artist that works in a unique medium & loves film, reading & art history. JooJ paints, cuts & folds thousands of Origami Butterflies & gluesthem to perspex to tell his story.
His Windmills of the Mind series further adds depth to his work by manipulating layers of Perspex to enhance the motion of the butterflies in flight.
JooJ chose to take an emotional route to encapsulate the Nine Circles of hell from Dante’s epic poem that
inspired Dan Brown’s book, Inferno, a profound exploration of our Humanity& an allegory for man’s descent into sin.