SELECTED ARTISTS
Sandile Radebe
Sandile is a Johannesburg based artist whose main area of interest is art practice in both, public and private spaces. Sandile explores these spaces through stimulating a new reading of graffiti and more broadly the way language works to help construct our realities.
The artist visualizes graffiti in abstract sculptural forms instead of alphabetic lettering. He populates gallery spaces with installations created from these forms which, in their labyrinthine structures, imaginatively evoke the artist’s own experience of walking through Johannesburg. The viewer is encouraged to think about graffiti and indeed language in a new way while conjuring the city ‘out there’ through a creative gallery navigation in time and space. Sandile studied BAFA(Honours) at Wits School of the Arts in from 2002 till 2006. In 2009 he studied for a PGDA in Arts and Cultural Management from Wits School of the Arts.
As a student Sandile also participated in several workshops including ‘a very temporary monument for an unsung hero’ with Jean-Bernard Koeman and the ‘24 hour workshops’ with Christian Nerf in 2005. Sandile also started painting murals as part of a collective with Katlego Lefine and BJ Engelbretch (2003). This was a means of generating income for art supplies for the collective.The collective painted murals for the ‘Wits School of the Arts launch’ (2003) ‘Soil’ a play by Kgafela oa Mogogodi (2004) Trinity records studios (2005) among other murals. After graduation Sandile continued individually to paint murals as a way of making a living. Individually he’s executed many more including murals for King Kong (2011) and several for the City of Joburg (2011). As a painting facilitator he helped realise murals through his learners for the Urban Arts Platform(2012) and Keleketla! Library(2011).
Sandile also participated in various group exhibitions including the ‘Assemblage Pop-Up show 2.0’ curated by Mika Conradie (June 2012), ‘Appeal 2012’ curated by Kim Gurney and Elgin Rust (September 2012), ‘Basha Uhuru’ curated by Kalishnikovv Gallery (June 2013), he collaborated with Mandy Johnston for ‘Diptych’ curated by Assemblage (September 2013). His work was recently selected for the top 100 works at the ‘Absa L’Atelier’ (April 2014). He has also executed public interventions ‘Lest We Forget’ at the Drill Hall, Johannesburg, in collaboration with Jabulani Matthews Tshuma (February 2014) as well as an installation intervention ‘Graphoasis’ at Afrika Burn in collaboration with Elgin Rust (May 2014). In February 2013 Sandile was invited to give a talk at the Goethe Institut’s ‘New Imaginaries/ New Publics’ symposium facilitated by the AAC.