Banele Khoza, Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans 2019, winner of the Gerard Sekoto Award (2017), is a Swaziland-born South African-based Visual Artist. I met him at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (2020) after a Art and Philanthropy in Africa panel discussion. Introverted and insightful, @banelekhoza is reflected in his work.
In his most recent body of work, 9-5 Residency at Pretoria Art Museum, Khoza sought to challenge himself, an artist with no formal structures when ‘doing his job’, to see what he could develop as a collection of art if he had specific restrictions like other people within to produce. “Not having a structure for myself means anytime is work time,” he muses. “And I’ve always been afraid of rest. It’s always seemed counter productive in a world that encourages and praises constant output.”
His work speaks for itself; bouncing between introspection and social commentary and possibly evaluating the social dynamics of existing in a bundle of parameters that make no sense but exist none the less. Banele headlines the solo exhibition titled, “LGBTQI+: Banele Khoza” as part of the Curatorial Lab at Zeitz MOCAA in 2018.
For more, visit www.banelekhoza.com and @bkhz on Instagram.