Heat Festival ART: VIP Meet-the-Artist High Tea at Mount Nelson
Thu Jul 11, 15:00 - Thu Jul 11, 17:00
Mount Nelson Hotel
ABOUT
Hosted by Ngkopoleng Moloi, one of HEAT’s festival curators, the Mount Nelson a Belmond Hotel Luxury Event on Thursday 11th July at 3 pm serves as an opportunity to introduce this new festival. Over a sumptuous tea guests will meet upcoming art stars showing artworks at the exhibitions during the festival. Thando 'Mboma' Phenyane, represented by Ebony/Curated, Charity Vilakazi by Kalshnikovv, the Joburg gallery that opened a space in Cape Town's Loop Street, Desire Marea, the renowned musician debuting paintings at Ecletica Contemporary and Lebo Kekana, who will show works at 99 Loop and has curated an exhibition at Reservoir Projects will be conversing with Moloi, before joining guests for informal exchanges at communal tables.
This will include a luxury tea (read the menu here).
Thando Phenyane is a fine artist with a background in architecture, holding an MA in Architecture from the University of Cape Town as well as being part of the inaugural V&A Artist Alliance Class in 2021. Phenyane's work strikes a balance between an interrogation of traditional and digital media and is greatly influenced by Dadaist painter Marcel Duchamp. Within his fine arts practice, he explores themes of issues with self-control, over-indulgence, and internal conflict in an internal dialogue of self-examination. He is also the owner of Mboma & Mboma; a collective that founded the online gallery Mboma Gallery. Phenyane's work has been featured by the 2021 Design Indaba in Cape Town, the 2022 Turbine Art Fair Graduate Show, as well as blank projects.
Charity Vilakazi is a multimedia artist and visual orator. She primarily works with painting and photography, focusing on exploring African mythology, folklore, and personal identity. Vilakazi draws inspiration from African folklore to illustrate the strength and resilience of women, exploring how stories empower and validate female agency. She cites being raised by her grandmothers, and their teachings of "girls [being] just as valuable as boys", as well as their folktales heavily influencing her work – their stories not only entertaining her but also forming a basis of her education in oral tradition. By celebrating African women as central figures in mythology and history, Vilakazi highlights the revolutionary potential of female power. She mixes ibomvu (a special kind of red clay used in African women's beautification rituals) with acrylic paint to honour the depth and beauty of her subject matter. Vilakazi studied photography at the Market Photo Workshop and has been involved in multiple group exhibitions with groups such as Through The Lens Collective and Joburg Fringe, as well as solo exhibitions with her representative, Kalashnikovv (who also showed her work at the 2022 FNB Joburg Art Fair.) She has also been named a 2023 Wated Online Young and Visual Artist.
Desire Marea is a queer South African multidisciplinary artist whose practice encapsulates both visual art and music, challenging conventions and expectations. Marea's music blends spiritual and experimental jazz, ancient Nguni, and Ndau, as well as electronic gqom-inspired beats, tapping into their spiritual and ancestral connections through their music.Their exhibition, The Baddies of Isandlwana, is their painting debut. Marea imagines the lives of queer Zulu warriors who fought in the battle of Isandlwana, the exhibition serving as a companion piece to their EP of the same name and creating an audio-visual sonic tapestry that challenges and reclaims queer narratives. They are also one of two founding members of Johannesburg collective FAKA, a collaboration with Fela Gucci which used music, performance, photography, and club events to explore queer identity, African art heritage, and free expression. FAKA toured extensively internationally and in 2019 was commissioned to score both the Versace Spring/Summer Menswear show and Telfar's NYFW show. FAKA was also featured in the Vogue World 100 and Dazed 100 lists.
Lebo Kekana is a self-taught artist, curator, and gallery director, based in Cape Town, as well as the founder of FEDE Arthouse. Established in 2020 out of a need to create non-exclusive spaces for artists, FEDE Arthouse is a nomadic alternative exhibition experience based on community as opposed to commerciality. Through FEDE, as well as his own artistic and curatorial practice, Kekana orchestrates a variety of site-specific exhibitions, each set in its own distinctive environment. Whilst Kekana has primarily worked on projects in Cape Town, in 2023 Kekana (through FEDE) took part in a cultural exchange with arts communities in various locations in Spain, curating art exhibitions in various mediums (from traditional painting to film) which explores the links between locales, art and design, and gallery and home. Most recently, Kekana curated the Latitude Live talks at the 2024 RNB Latitudes Art Fair with a focus on fostering meaningful dialogue and critical discussions. He is the primary curator for RESERVOIR's Cultural Material.