Current Permanent Resident Artists
Written by Administrator
Studio 1
Velile Soha and Vuyile Cameron Voyiya
Velile Soha
Biography
Soha developed an interest in art at a very young age. Encouraged to pursue his talent as an adult, he attended C.A.P. and went on to study at Rorke’s Drift Art School in Kwa Zulu Natal. The school was founded by the Swedish Missionaries and this was the principal facility for the black artists in South Africa.
Soha’s experiences have continued to inspire him in his artistic pursuits. He returned to Cape Town in 1984 to teach young artists at the Nyanga Art Centre and C.A.P. for several years before devoting himself full time to his art career.
He has participated in several Thupela workshops and he is a current artist in Residence at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town. His work has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions across South Africa and in Namibia, Germany, United Kingdom, Argentina, U.S.A., Holland, Sweden and Canada. He has worked on mural projects and received many commissions for book illustrations.
Vuyile Cameron Voyiya
Studio 2
Conor Ralphs
Biography
I am moved to create by an expanding collection of deep experiences of the people and places of Africa. I am drawn particularly to subcultural and subversive expressions in different contexts – moments of personal and political activism – and to aspects of the contemporary world that seek or derive no popular media representation for reasons personal, political, emotional or creative. Art can attempt to derive and evoke meaning from the that which is underexposed.
Studio 10
Mongezi Gum
Biography
Mongezi Gum was born 1970 in Langa on the Cape Flats, where he also grew up. He completed a three year course in painting, drawing, sculpting and printmaking at the "Johannesburg Art Foundation" from 1992 to 1994 before returning to Cape Town to pursue a career as an artist.Gum was granted the opportunity to work from "Greatmore Studios begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting" in Woodstock in Cape Town. There his talent was nurtured and he began to believe that art should be a means of multicultural exchange, different cultures exposing their particular traditions through their art.
Gum has participated in four "Thupelo" Regional workshops and exhibitions from 1998 to 2001 in the annexure of the "South African National Gallery". He has also exhibited on several group shows in Cape Town, including an exhibition at "Art Space" in 1999. In 2000 he received an award for being the most promising upcoming young artist from "Truworths" Department Store. They also displayed his artworks on their calendar.
In 2001 Gum had one of his works printed onto carry bags produced by "Woolworth's" Department Store. This is a testimony to the fact that his artworks have a popular appeal; they are vivid, animated and hopeful.
In 2003 Gum participated in a two man exhibition with Lonwabo Kilani at the "Association for the Visual Arts Gallery", Cape Town. In 2004 Gum participated in the "Everard Read Galleries' " (South Africa's preeminent Art Gallery) "10 Years of Democracy Exhibit" with nine other promising artists from South Africa.
Gum's works are in private collections in South Africa, Germany, the United Kingdom, and in the United States.
About his art:
Gum claims art as a means of multicultural exchange. His subject matter thus portrays a combination of traditional African and contemporary township values, often depicting rural Xhosa people in customary attire alongside the urban inhabitants of the suburbs on the Cape Flats which constitute his daily surroundings and conditions.
Gum is also a passionately involved in his community. He is a builder and member of the "Ubunthu Youth Development" project in Langa where he works to reduce crime and educate youth. The melding of his community involvement and his artistic talent resulted in his success as a mural painter. He has worked on a variety of murals in his area, at taxi ranks, meeting places and at the Tavern in Langa.
Studio 11
Jade Gibson and Suzanne Elizabeth Duncan
Jade Gibson
Biography
Jade Gibson has an eclectic background which is reflected in her interests and work. She studied Fine Art Painting at Central Saint Martins School of Art, London, having changed from Medical Sciences to Art, and combines this with her research work into creativity within Anthropology of Art in which she has a PhD. She has lived and worked in different countries - the UK, North Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu in the South Pacific (working on an environmental centre while living in the rainforest for seven months), and South Africa, where she currently resides. She is half-Filipino and half-Scottish in ancestry. She has also written a novel, which she intends to publish. It is inevitable that her work reflects the ‘precipice of life’ – the diversity and complexity of existence – the moments, emotions and energy of living infused with both its humour and its darkness – dancing, death, flight, freedom and the constraints of the conventional - moving from large to small, charcoal to acrylic to oils, 2-D to 3-D. She often combines her work with themes and pieces of creative writing, including poetry.
Suzanne Elizabeth Duncan
Biography
was born in Cape Town and have lived here for most of my life, apart from a gap year spent in and around the U.K. I graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 2006 with a B.A.F.A, where I majored in sculpture under Jane Alexander and Gavin Younge.
I participated in my first art - related event in 2003, with an interactive installation piece that I created with three friends for the art event YDESIRE, held at the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town.
Since then I have exhibited work in various other group exhibitions, notably Contusion, a three person show held at the Irma Stern Gallery, Cape Town, in 2007. The most recent group show that I was involved in was Obsession, at The KKNK, Oudshroon, earlier this year.
I was awarded as one of the top ten finalists in the ABSA L’Atelier Awards, 2008.
In that year I also attended a two week found objects, Thupelo Workshop at Greatmore Studios and facilitated a short body casting workshop for the //kwattu center, Melkbos.
I am currently doing a residency at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town.
Studio 14
Kim Myerson
Kim Myerson, a South African painter, has just returned to her homeland after spending the last 7 years in Italy. She studied the techniques of classical realism in Florence, under the tutelage of the maestro Charles Cecil who was trained by R. H. Ives Gammell and maestro Michael John Angel, a one-time pupil of Pietro Annigoni.Kim Myerson specialises in portraiture, nudes and still lifes and describes her style as "Painterly Realism". Her objective is to capture the emotional totality of the image to produce dreamy interpretations that combine realism with timelessness.
Using only the finest materials of oils on hand-woven Belgian linen and traditional methods, Kim is able to not only capture the character of the face but also the magic of their personalities.
She is now based in Cape Town, where she takes commissions for portraits, nudes and also produces still lifes and landscapes.
