INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

Skumbuzo 'Skubalisto’ Vabaz, South Africa

Skubalisto is a Cape Town-based, South African artist. The painter, muralist and portraitist is active and engaged in social and cultural awareness raising in his country and community. His work addresses pertinent issues around social justice, identity and belonging.

He is particularly passionate and vocal about young people ​on the African continent ​and their futures. Having completed his studies in visual and fine art he has over the last ten years built an acumen and practice that is distinctive and exciting.

Skubalisto's primarily creates portraits in a contemporary expressionist style, both as murals and canvas paintings. He views his work as 'a collection of ideas and stories that serve as visual diaries for the state of the world at the time of their creation.’

 Skubalisto Website
 

Charlene Komuntale, Uganda

Charlene Komuntale is a digital artist and illustrator based in Kampala, Uganda. She holds a BA in Animation from Limkokwing University, Malaysia. 

In her recent series 'Not Fragile', Komuntale portrays women - mostly black African women. The subject matter is personal yet presented in a relatable way as inspiration is drawn from her own experiences but also informed by the experiences of other women around her.

The heads of the women she portrays are covered by different elements, which create poetic yet striking narratives around a broadly relatable figure. At first sight, the works evoke a dreamy, peaceful, and quiet atmosphere, whereas at a closer look powerful, empowering and unapologetic messages come to the fore.

Dominant, male-centered perspectives on women’s roles and supposedly nature-given capabilities and constraints attached to female bodies are being evaluated and re-examined. The juxtaposition of different elements creates an interesting asymmetry between awareness of self and the (male-centered) gaze of others. Intimacy, tenderness, vulnerability, and female beauty do not suggest fragility. Instead, it is related to strength and unapologetic confidence. Komuntale’s digital paintings deconstruct patriarchal narratives as shaped by culture, religion, and politics and provide a ground for inquiry and interrogation, and for visions of different futures.

Charlene Komuntale is the 2023 LK Artist in Residence, hosted by The Mill, Adelaide. As part of her Residence she will join The Mill's artist community in a Sponsored Studio for six weeks. 

 @charlieynoble
 

Delovie Kwagala, Uganda

DeLovie Kwagala is the first non-binary queer photographer and social activist from Kampala, Uganda. They are self taught and currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their work explores narratives around Identity, Belonging, Social Injustices, and Gender-Sexuality with the intent to not sexualise, fetishise or stigmatise; inspired by their experience and those of others. They have worked with Facebook, UNICEF, TIME Magazine, The Guardian, Washington post, and many NGOs in Uganda and internationally.

 DeLovie Kwagala website
 

JOHN VUSI MFUPI, SOUTH AFRICA

John Vusi Mfupi work portrays celebration of youth and mobility; dealing with human life matters that affect people globally. Mfupi's style has developed into his well-known upcycled collage technique, not only is this technique an efficient means of production as an artist living in a small space, the materials also play a vital role in portraying his concepts. Mfupi majored in painting at third year and after graduating discovered artist's need space, not only work space, but also for storage. His solution was to replace paint with magazines. He comments on his solution, 'Canvases are bulky, paper collages can be packed flat and easily stored. With collages, I'd make 20 or more artworks and stash them under my bed. I was only a couple of years out of the college, and it was tough getting going. I had no space and had to buy art materials; I started using magazines because the only thing I needed was colour.'

Passionate about education and art, Mfupi continues to share his expertise with several schools in Gauteng, teaching art and painting murals with learners. Mfupi has been involved in several public art initiatives, including the new Metro Mall and Faraday development, a flagship project for inner city renewal in Bree Street and the Faraday Taxi rank in central Johannesburg.

International Artists Continued

Sandra Wauye, Kenya

Sandra Wauye is a Kenyan artist who currently works and lives in Mombasa, the coast of Kenya. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Civil engineering that was obtained in 2018 from the Technical University of Mombasa. Although she has been painting as a hobby since childhood, she took the full plunge into being a full time artist in 2020, during the COVID pandemic. She has been slowly honing her skills in oil painting and gouache illustration and has been able to participate in a number of local group exhibitions.

Sandra’s work is deeply rooted in personal experiences of different individuals within the African community. Her subjects tend to be the people around her, painting what she sees, taking photographs of random people and once in a while engaging with sitters. Her work shows African people in different settings in their culture and the experiences that shape who they are. Her figurative paintings are designed to portray to African identities, childhood experiences and memories. Her thematic focus is on subjects like discrimination, loneliness and isolation.
 

Amiolemen Emmanuel, Nigeria

Amiolemen Emmanuel is a visual artist from Nigeria. He uses his skills and techniques to document different expressions using realistic figural images as his reference point, and acrylic medium on textured canvas with both neutral and complementary colors. He started painting when he obtained Higher National Diploma in painting technology in 2018. Art gives Amiolemen great significance to life through documenting different expressions from the beautiful African environment. He believes art gives value to his cultural heritage whilst providing information on what is happening around us and how to overcome social, cultural and environmental problems.
 

Leevans Linyerera, Kenya

Leevans Linyerera is a self-taught Kenyan artist. His work is influenced by societal issues and how they affect our personal lives.

south Australian Artists

Jian Tan, South Australia

Jian Tan is a self-taught Malaysian Visual Artist based in Adelaide, who is well versed in the field of expressionism. In his recent exhibition, Soundless Stories, his collection explores the honest perception of living as an artist, the micro and macro impacts of the everyday life and events shaping the psyche of an artist.
 

Narges Anvar, South Australia

Narges Anvar is an Iranian artist living in Adelaide. A visual arts graduate of the University of South Australia, her expressive drawings immerse audiences in emotive storytelling that she has absorbed from some of her most private experiences and memories. Her work is an expression of her challenges and concerns as an artist, a mother and a human being.

Sifting through her emotions, she vacillates between memory and imagination, layers in her personality and her feelings, and translates them into her own visual language. Narges’ compositions seldom rely on strictly illustrative or narrative paradigms, working rather in continuous lines through trains of thought-feeling that channel emotions such as anger, desire, fear, and pain in raw and communicative ways.
 

Marko Mangira, South Australia

Marko Mangira is a Kenyan artist based in South Australia. He studied art and design at Brook House School in Kenya, acquiring distinction merit in his study. The course particularly inspired him to pursue painting portraits to convey the mental and emotional way of his ethnic community. He believes that through portrait art he can showcase beautiful parts of his community and upbringing. In addition, he is motivated by the vast majority of different ethnic backgrounds of his country allowing him to showcase over 50 tribes with their own unique identity and culture.