Meet The Artists
At Gallery Direct, we focus on selecting high-quality art from talented and emerging artists in the country. We have strong connections with both artists and curators from around the world which allows us to meet the diverse decor needs of our clients.
Ramarutha Makoba explores themes of community and family relationships through the symbol of a tree. Working and drawing predominately in charcoal, pastel and acrylic, Ramarutha Makoba has a recognisable style. One of the recognisable features in his drawings and paintings is that of the bright coloured tree situated in and amongst the landscape and daily life of people from his community.
Stephen Graham started out in the fields of decor, fashion and lifestyle with magazines, theatre, TV, cinema, and events before fully immersing himself in the pop and urban art scene, taking inspiration from iconic POP artists like Andy Warhol, as well as urban architecture. His work is influenced most by his passion for visual storytelling, which he achieves through the use of images from popular culture to express a message about society. He experiments with simple materials as well as bright colours, bold designs and vibrant palettes, not to mention that extra bit of sparkle that’s central to all his art, to create truly spectacular results.
Steve Maphoso is a self-taught Angolan-born artist.
Maphoso’s works are described as continuous conversations with the light and dark aspects of his own life.
Maphoso’s works are created with acrylic and charcoal & are rooted in the capturing of emotions.
The cloud-like elements in Maphoso’s works show his liking of the weather and the changes in nature.
With a fascination for bright colours and fashion & a passion for Abstract & Contemporary Artwork, Lizel is able to create vibrant & colourful Abstract Artworks with the use of Acrylics & Mixed Mediums on Canvas.
Living on a farm in the mountainous Free State, Anelle’s artwork is inspired by her everyday surroundings.
Anelle focuses on capturing thought-provoking moods that convert a relatable state of being.
Her mediums are charcoal & ink but she is constantly mixing and experimenting with different mediums.
Using subtle tones, executed with a contemporary flair, creates a delicate balance between her styles.
Arlindo, born in Mozambique in 1969, left his home country at the age of 18 to escape the civil war. At South African Breweries where he worked as a deliveryman, a manager recognized his artistic talent and encouraged him to pursue it. Heeded that advice and in 1996, he decided to become a full-time visual artist. Despite having no formal art education, Arlindo has become a successful artist. His works have been exhibited in countries like South Africa, Italy, Australia, USA, Germany, Portugal, UK and Dubai. He has triumphed over adversity to achieve success in his field.
Blessing Ngobeni, born in 1985 in Tzaneen, South Africa, is an artist who works in a variety of mediums such as painting, collage, sculpture, video animation, sound installations, and live performances. His art creates a unique blend of Surrealism, Dada, and Neo-Expressionism in large-scale paintings, which critiques the socio-political system in South Africa. He brings attention to the government’s failure to deliver on Nelson Mandela’s promises of a more equal society post-Apartheid. His multi-layered canvases incorporate imagery from magazines, books, and social media, as well as his distinct figurative characters, to reflect various perspectives on current affairs of our time.
Danisile Njoli’s paintings are a vivid and masterful reflection of the human face. Inspired by the beauty he sees when observing people’s expressions, the artist, whose love for art began at a young age, was born in Zimbabwe and completed an apprenticeship for fine art at the National Gallery of Bulawayo-A2. The use of charcoal, acrylic and mixed medium are the tools that he uses to capture the emotions of his subjects. His choice of subject matter in his body or works is the women (the mothers) and children (the future of tomorrow) of our society.
Dario Paulino Manjate was born in 1972 in Mozambique, and from a young age, he was drawn to painting and drawing. In 1993, he moved to Alexandra Township in South Africa where he fully embraced his passion for art and decided to pursue a career as a professional artist. Manjate primarily uses recycled magazines in his work, as the glossy pages enhance the message he wants to convey.
Dean Kelly was born in Kwazulu Natal, and studied Fine Arts at Natal Technicon. He started his career as Art Director in the publication industry, before becoming a full time artist. What drives Dean is the creative process. Half the fun is the painting process itself, the other being satisfaction and reaction from the client. Dean has had paintings featured 4 times on SABC 3 Top Billing programmes.
Born in the small rural village of Petrus Steyn in the Free State, Ennock made his move to Sasolburg to live with his grandmother after his parents died when he was seven. Although his family struggled financially and lived off his grandmother’s pension he always believed he was destined for great things. While art can be an expensive craft, Ennock says you need to start with the little resources you have. He started doing works with pen and still uses that now to create amazing pieces.
Justice Mathonsi was born in 1987 in Soweto. He has specialised in lino reduction. His body of work pays tribute and homage to the many women who raised him. He grew up in a rural area called Ribugwani in Limpopo and was raised by the elderly women in my community who became his grandmothers. Under their guidance, they taught him about Tsonga values and culture and how to be a Man. The portraits are very detailed and show the elements of time, age, history and knowledge evident in the lines of their faces.
Kganya is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who primarily creates mixed media and oil paintings. She focuses on portraiture, and her artwork is inspired by people in and around her life, her journey with God, her momentous life events, and the desire to resolve social ills closely related to women and mental health.
Leonard Baloyi is a South African Visual artist born and raised in Soweto where he currently
lives and works. He started drawing and painting in his teenage years and his love for art was nurtured
immensely and thus evident to everyone around him, especially his counterparts. He is a portrait artist primarily working with oils,acrylics,pastels and charcoals. Baloyi specializes in
amazingly soulful portraits that show both the power of femininity and masculinity in different
expressions. His practice engages with concepts of identity, feeling and emotion.
Mandla Mavangere is a Johannesburg-based multidimensional visual artist, whose works speak to the diversity and inequalities of labour, the hardships of migration and the monetary value.
Mncedi Madolo lives and works in Johannesburg. Living in the city brought him closer to the realities of urban life. Madolo found himself surrounded by people making a living within the constraints of a lower middle-class existence. This presented interesting paradoxes and he started implementing elements of this in his work. Magazine covers celebrating “black is beautiful” and flyers advertising fast solutions to personal problems are presented with cartoon sketches mocking the status quo while familiar brands loom in the background. Many of the materials and images used in the paintings are collected from the street and present itself as a complex layering of stories.
Mbongeni was born in KwaZulu-Natal and has always had a passion for art. He is interested in expressing action, mood and even the rhythm (if it is a musical scene) to engage the viewer into the life of his paintings. The body of his work is largely figures, evolving from abstract images to recognisable elements using vibrant colours, texture and 3D effects.
Nikhil Tricam is an artist and architect living in Durban, South Africa. His exploration of the city began with urban art and illustration, and through time has evolved to into loose, ink impressions of the city. His work focuses on the interplay between the static, built context of building and street and the dynamic, ever-changing forces that give life to the urban realm. He works in ink, acrylic, graphite and pencil, and has begun exploring and documenting the city through the lens.
Nisty Chatha, a Malawian born artist, began drawing as a hobby during primary school with friends. After finishing school, he observed an old friend making a living by selling their paintings and it was at that point that he decided to take his talent seriously. He mostly works in acrylic and oil, with a style ranging from partly smooth strokes to rough ones. His work is about the positive spirit of Africa. Besides being inspired by his personal experiences, he is also inspired by keenly observing the positivity in people.
Thomas Ngulube states that he is first a sculptor before a painter and a poet before a writer. He fuses all that he is together, spiritually, in creating art. Thomas lives a creative life and uphold the fact that living one’s dream is a creative fulfilment. His art is subjectively and universally inspired by diversity and his core inspirations are most often mirrored against the Holy Writ, as that is where his innermost voice erupts from.
An all round creative who defines himself as a Renaissance man, Ofentse’s talents have shaped him as a painter, fashion designer, musician & songwriter. With his journey of feeding his spiritual man, he has developed a love for writing about social problems & plans to be a man of influence to the people & within the industries his talents lie in.
Patrick Seruwu is a Ugandan born artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Seruwu’s art celebrates the strength of women, particularly his mother who raised him. He uses paint drips as a metaphor for both tears of sadness and joy. His portraits are in the shape of busts, which idolize eternal youth and ancient strength. The color palette of sepia and pink represents healing and the passage of time. It is a representation of womanhood and the passage of time, like the color of old photographs or aging material.
Sabelo Mkhaliphi, was born in Soweto Johannesburg. His work is focused on telling the African women’s life experiences. The reflections in their glasses give us an insight into their lives and environments. Those of us who have ever visited Johannesburg will also recognise scenes and iconic places from the city reflected in the glasses. The pieces are created in a combination of Oil painting, Acrylic and Collage.
Sanusi Olatunji was born in Yoruba, Ejigbo in Lagos, Nigeria. Sanusi is currently living in South Africa and believes that while Nigeria provided him with an opportunity to explore ideas, South Africa is providing him with the opportunity to follow his dreams. Practising his art and exhibiting throughout Africa has been an uplifting experience, and he’s looking forward to taking on the world! He has discovered a love for working in several mediums, but paper and fabric collages has been his most favourite. He sees it as a form of up-cycling which he titled: Waste is wealth.
Semi Lubisi is a Joburg based self-taught artist from Ivory Park township. His works are characterized by the dominance of township ambience, which reflects the connection the artist has for his neighbourhood. He draws inspiration from the day-to-day lives of ordinary people in the township and makes use of charcoal, watercolours & acrylics on paper to relate stories & experiences of the township lives.
Shadrack Bosman’s biggest influence is and always has been his parents. His father was an architect, and his mother was a costume designer. Therefore, he has been exposed to a creative sensibility from a young age. For this reason, he aims to express his appreciation, through art, for other people’s visual art and technical drawings. He uses colour symbolism in order to influence the healing of the emotional and psychological centre for any person. He believes that this is his way of fixing this country.
Born in Soweto, Simphiwe often describes himself as the “new Soweto lost generation”, due to his mixed background which is as diverse as his art; ranging from sculpting, painting, print making and video making. Much of Simphiwe’s work features repetitive motifs, representing his childhood being reared by his grandmother. The water tap represents her nurturing love, whilst the trees represent the artist himself. Simphiwe uses a monochrome colour palate and use of black enamel paint, being the distinguishing elements of Simphiwe’s work.
As a qualified fashion designer Splash Motong’s keen interest in art was inevitable. Being born and bred in the biggest township in South Africa-Soweto, his keen inspiration has always been influenced by the vibrant & colourful lifestyle that Soweto offers. His style of painting is heavily inspired by the broad contrast and living activities of township life.
Sylvester Falata’s artworks are influenced by a range of experiences from his fashion background. Which began in 2005 when he was mentored and tutored by Annah Getaneh and Eric Raisina. His eponymous label was launched in 2010 and has been showcased at the South African Fashion Week and internationally. His use of colour, texture, and experimenting with proportions are evidence of his fashion influence.
Tanya Sternberg lives and works as an artist and graphic designer in Cape Town. Her artworks explore human nature’s pursuit to be whole. Layered with ink, pins and x-rays, artworks are bold yet sensitively fragile. Angular planes of colour and x-ray float and journey through space in a random but contradictory organized fluid movement. Geometric shapes originally start in an organized fashion building layers upon each other until there is a dense overlapping of structures. Tanya draws inspiration from connected moments between people, her family and the inner pursuit of space and balance in our natural and urban landscapes.
Thamsanga Mfuphi is a self-taught artist born and raised in rural areas of KZN, South Africa. His body of work is based on human conditions, his inspiration comes from the struggle he experienced growing up in line with Africanism, which takes into account the culture and the religion of Africans. Through immense portraits, the artist carefully questions the situation of Africans and how some of the Africans are prisoners of their own riches.
Thandazani Ndlovu was born in Zimbabwe. Thandazani began exhibiting, showcased at art festivals, and featured in galleries throughout Africa. This led to several commissioned works, one of which sits in the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Most of his paintings focus on facial expressions, emotions and figurative expressions. He works with a variety of media such as acrylic, charcoal, oils, water color, sand, coffee and pastels. The full-time artist also finds time to give back to his community by supporting local orphanages and fundraising initiatives. He wishes to create awareness of social issues and make a difference for disadvantaged children all over the world. Today, his works are in gallery collections and worldwide art networks.
Themba Shabalala is a contemporary South African artist. A totem award winner in 2015 and currently based in Johannesburg, Themba Shabalala’s formal discipline lies in printmaking. He is predominantly engaged with fire and wood as a medium. He is currently exploring the concept of self-image, which is a reflection of his upbringing and his battle with an absent father figure. His work shows how he chooses to carry traits his mother has given him instead and how he learns to overlook his father’s physical absence. His work has been featured in several group exhibitions and has also been auctioned. Shabalala was one of 9 artists selected in Africa for the prestigious World Art Print in France.
Thulani Nhlapo was born in KwaThema and later moved to Johannesburg. Nhlapo’s work aims to convey an emotional story through illustrating the fragility of his life from personal experiences. His work captures the deepest feelings of the subject; he makes a conscious effort in all his work to prompt this core essence so as to reveal something more important, something real, and hidden by self-limitations and society.
4 Generations later, the passion for Art continues with Vanessa and her Wildlife Art.
Her inspiration comes from the natural beauty of our world. Some of her works are depicted with a blank background giving the viewer a feel for the vast open spaces that is still left in Africa.
Other paintings are depicted in the warm abstract backgrounds depicting the sun-drenched natural regions of South Africa.
Zakes Msane is a South African artist who was born in 1986. Zakes Msane’s work has been offered at auction multiple times.