ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a multidisciplinary artist guided by a deep interest in the metaphysical and the unseen. Rooted in African spiritual traditions and personal memory, my work is an intuitive exploration of the human experience — an attempt to give form to the invisible forces that shape who we are.
I often move across mediums, allowing each material to speak its own language while contributing to a symbolic narrative about the harmony between mind, body, and soul.
Much of my visual language is inherited and inspired — shaped by the legacy of my late father, Samson Mnisi, and visionary thinkers like Sun Ra. Their influence has opened pathways for me to explore ancestral wisdom, cosmic consciousness, and the spaces where ritual, imagination, and identity intersect.
My practice embraces abstraction not as an escape, but as a return — an invitation to remember, reconnect, and reimagine.
Through layered compositions and intuitive mark-making, I aim to create work that resonates both spiritually and emotionally. My art is both a personal offering and a communal gesture — meant to reflect, awaken, and realign.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
In 2023, Mnisi presented Pula, a solo exhibition at Kakdel Art Hub in Tel Aviv. The show explored the cultural and spiritual symbolism of water within African cosmology, using mixed-media works to meditate on cycles of renewal, memory, and connection.
That same year, he completed three international artist residencies in Tel Aviv — at Herzl 140, Under1000, and Kakdel Art. These residencies allowed Mnisi to further expand his multidisciplinary practice, engaging with new materials, communities, and site-responsive projects.
In 2024, Mnisi’s work was included in the Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg, one of South Africa’s leading contemporary art fairs, where his pieces continued to reflect his engagement with themes of metaphysics and the abstraction of personal and collective experience.
His practice remains rooted in an intuitive process, allowing works to evolve organically as meditations on the visible and invisible forces that shape human existence. Mnisi continues to develop a body of work that bridges ancestral knowledge with contemporary abstraction, offering visual spaces for reflection, healing, and spiritual inquiry.
ARTIST STATEMENT
STILL NOISE
‘Still Noise’ suggests a static image filled with motion, a quiet surface that holds the traces of an audible past. The work doesn’t aim to depict sound, but rather to serve a record of its presence and a lingering artifact of both visual composition and sonic imprint.
ARTIST RESUME
Thirza Schaap graduated from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague in 1996. Since then, she has been working as an artist and is currently exploring new art forms through her Plastic Ocean project. She has been living and working in both Amsterdam and Cape Town, South Africa, since 2013.
After first posting her Plastic Ocean images on Instagram, she was featured by i-D Vice in the summer of 2017, followed by Lidewij Edelkoort’s Trend Tablet, L’Officiel, Elle, Vogue, Aperture, and many others. Her collection was included in the Finders Keepers exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, a design museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
In May 2019, during Design Week in Salone, Italy, she was acknowledged by Instagram as one of four artists successfully presenting themselves through social media. In March 2018, she gave a lecture and workshop alongside her exhibition at the Fabrica Research Center in Venice, Italy.
Her first solo exhibition of Plastic Ocean opened in June 2018 at Christie’s in Amsterdam, in collaboration with Colette Olof’s OWonder. Her sculptures were first exhibited in 2019 in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and later that year in Cape Town, in collaboration with Greenpeace Africa.
In 2021, she published her first book, Plastic Ocean, and joined Bildhalle Gallery in Zürich and Amsterdam. That spring, she had her first solo exhibition at Bildhalle Amsterdam and received an Inspiration Award from Hedy D’Ancona and the Humanistic Association in the Netherlands.
She was featured in 2021 by Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Harpers (New York), Sunday Times (South Africa), The Guardian (UK), and all major Dutch newspapers. In 2022, she was a special guest at the Royal Academy London Summer Show.
In September 2023, her solo exhibition Cast Away opened at Bildhalle Amsterdam, where she presented photographs as well as, for the first time in Amsterdam, her sculptures and paintings.
Tertius van Dyk is a surrealist artist born in Overberg in the Western Cape, South Africa. An avid lover of trees, rocks, rust, and everything earthy, his signature motifs often feature trees and the moon set in desert-like landscapes. He also draws inspiration from the ocean, depicting whales from his hometown of Hermanus, as well as sharks and shipwrecks.
While his love for art has been lifelong, Tertius only pursued it professionally later in life, when it became clear that his work was not only deeply valued but also in high demand. Sometimes, our best dreams take time to be realized.
Tertius works in mixed media but primarily uses acrylic on large canvas formats. Of his art, he says: “I love wide open spaces, full of emptiness and peaceful solitude, and I strive to bring this forward in my art.” Drawing from the beauty of the African landscape, his imagination fuses seemingly mismatched elements to create surrealistic gems.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Body of Work Name: Re-imagine
Elements of nature, the movement of bodies, colours, shapes, textures, and tastes — these are what fill our memories and fuel our need to describe creatively.
Describing emotive memories can be like recalling a dream; words and images seem to disintegrate as we reach for them. This is because, in order to remember them, they must be re-experienced.
Although the details of our individual experiences differ, the feeling of returning to a memory is something we can share.
By visually re-imagining my own experiences, I’m inviting the viewer to participate in the process of memory itself.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
I am a Cape Town-based artist. My art is inspired by the rich diversity of shapes, colours, tones, and interactions that make up my lived experience — the things that stir in me a desire to capture and communicate.
I believe we share a common primal language, and that visual experience can ignite memories of that language within us.
My art is an invitation to share a moment — to participate in a silent conversation between expression and experience.
Through abstract expression, my work explores the beauty of the ordinary. It aims to evoke a sense of familiarity in the viewer — not through the recognition of objects, but through a shared visceral experience.
Every viewer, and every viewing, will yield a different response. It is this diversity of visual experiences that drives the conversation that connects us.
This, I believe, is the critical function of art.
ARTIST STATEMENT - February 2026
Hear Me is about how meaning gets lost in a world full of noise, images, and too many choices. It looks at love, trust, and conflict, and how they’ve changed over time. This is my message of advice to every generation.
Overall, my collection is about slowing down, questioning what we’re told, and learning to listen — not just with our eyes, but with intention and feeling. In a world where life is hard enough, our decisions shape generations, whether we believe it or not.
Hear Me!
Love, Distorted
My generation
Represents how love isn’t what it used to be. With so many options and constant access to new people, loyalty feels weaker and commitment feels temporary. The broken wording reflects how love has been changed, edited, and often treated as disposable.
Seeing isn’t believing
The new generation
Speaks to how easy it is to believe things at face value. We’re shown so much every day that it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s controlled or fake. The work is a reminder to question what we’re being fed.
Wars we didn’t choose
Old generation
Represents wars and conflicts that are passed down rather than chosen. They speak to a generation that is tired of being handed violence, beliefs, and problems that don’t belong to them. We choose love, kindness, compassion, respect, and equality in all walks of life.
The Bare Bear sculptures
For all generations
The Bare Bear sculptures show the difference between thinking and feeling. One bear exposes a brain, symbolising logic, overthinking, and being shaped by outside voices. The other exposes a heart, representing emotion, vulnerability, and intuition. Together they ask whether we listen with our heads or our hearts, and how that shapes everyday life in different ways.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My name is Ashley Algeria Ferreira, otherwise known as That’s Ash. I was born and raised in the East of Johannesburg. I love all things colourful and vibrant. As a child, taking things apart to change their appearance was an everyday adventure — I needed to ensure everything I owned was unique to me.
When Covid struck, I had the unique opportunity to reflect on my life, and I decided to make a bold move to Cape Town with no clear direction or intention. Here, I discovered my true passion for creating through spray painting, painting, and sculpting. I’ve since been able to bring my imagination to life in unique ways.
As a versatile artist, I am driven by the exploration of diverse materials and mediums, ensuring that each piece I create is one of a kind. My work spans a wide range of styles, from vibrant, colourful compositions to textured, technical designs. I take great satisfaction in the entire creative process, from conceptualising and crafting my artwork to refining each detail. Embracing a hands-on approach, I believe in experimenting with every possibility and dedicating myself fully to each project I undertake.
My true passion blossomed when I created my own character, Bare Bear. From the first sketch, I knew this was the one. I have since brought him to life in sculptural form and continue to create entire collections dedicated to this character.
ARTIST STATEMENT - February 2026 Exhibition
Listen | The Sound of Freedom explores listening as an act of courage, empathy, and transformation. In this Origami Butterflies collection, JooJ uses thousands of individually folded butterflies to visualise how freedom is not declared by one voice alone, but formed through many — layered, fragile, and powerful when united.
The butterfly, a recurring symbol in JooJ’s practice, represents change, hope, and the quiet strength of repetition. Each fold is intentional, echoing the idea that freedom is built patiently, moment by moment. When assembled, these delicate forms create dynamic movement, suggesting voices in motion — rising, converging, and resonating beyond the individual.
The Madiba work anchors the collection. Mandela’s legacy was shaped as much by his ability to listen as by his ability to lead. His belief in dialogue, reconciliation, and collective dignity is translated here into a living surface of butterflies — a visual chorus that speaks to unity, resilience, and the enduring power of humanity when heard.
The Silence Before Climax is the collection’s most explicit provocation. It captures the suspended moment just before surrender, when breath is held, bodies pause, and everything is possible. Here, silence becomes erotic, powerful, and destabilising. The butterflies hover on the brink of motion, transforming anticipation itself into spectacle. JooJ suggests that climax is not the point — the tension before it is where truth lives.
The two circular compositions extend this dialogue. The circle, a symbol of continuity and wholeness, reflects freedom as an ongoing conversation rather than a final destination. These works suggest rhythm and return — the idea that listening is cyclical, shared, and essential to collective growth.
Across Listen | The Sound of Freedom, JooJ invites viewers to pause, to listen beyond noise, and to recognise freedom not only as a historical achievement, but as a living, shared responsibility, carried forward through presence, compassion, and connection.
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.
