The Promise is the title of this year’s Nando’s Creative Exchange (NCX) exhibition, in partnership with Spier Arts Trust, at HUB Gallery in Cape Town until 10 January 2025. It showcases the work of four talented artists: Lionel Mbayiwa, Rentia Retief, Kenneth Ndumiso and Madeleine van Manen.
NCX is the flagship artist development programme within the Nando’s Art Initiative, aimed at helping artists to take the next steps in their professional practice. Established in 2011 to recognise emerging, Southern African fine artists who demonstrate exceptional ability, offering them a group exhibition and mentorship opportunities, including art materials sponsorship and a significant platform for exposure.
This year’s cohort enjoyed mentorship from 2018 NCX programme alumnus, Nkosinathi Quwe, who has gone on exhibit at the 1-54 Africa art fair in London and have his artworks included in various international collections, including the Nando’s Collection (comprising more than 28 000 artworks, making Nando’s the largest publicly displayed collection of contemporary Southern African art in the world).
“Nando’s is passionate about nurturing and showcasing Southern African creativity. Our restaurants are our galleries. With 1200 restaurants spread out across the globe, each featuring unique contemporary southern African art from the Nando’s Collection, we get 100 million visitors per year, which is more than some of the top gallery tourist attractions in the world,” says Tlalane McWade, General Manager for Brand and Communications at Nando’s. “When we talk about taking southern African creativity to the world, it’s not just talk – we’ve sent art to more than 24 countries to date.”
About The Promise exhibition
The exhibition explores the question “Where do we belong?” Each artist considers this theme through their own lens.
“As four artists from very different backgrounds, our collective narrative is that of seeking a secure sense of belonging within the environments we find ourselves in. We observe with sensitivity and respect the past and the present while cherishing dreams for ourselves and others. We reference our personal and direct observations of the environments we came to inhabit, our own situations within society, seeking meaning through symbolism and distilled imagery. Our experiences are seemingly overlapping through a recognition of the desire for the same and the search for calm within the chaos” (excerpted from the exhibition statement).
McWade encourages those in Cape Town, whether residents or visitors, to experience the exhibition for themselves, either at HUB Gallery until 10 January, or at the AVA Gallery from 16 January to 26 February 2025. [see artist details below]
Get to the HUB Gallery to see how each artist succeeds in exploring the question “Where do we belong?
WHAT: Nando’s Creative Exchange (NCX) – The Promise
WHERE: HUB Gallery, 25 Commercial Street, Cape Town 8001
WHEN: until 10 January 2025
INFO: Nando’s Creativity VISIT .
About the artists in The Promise
Kenneth Shandu (1993 – )
Kenneth Shandu is a practicing contemporary artist who works with a variety of materials and mediums to make drawings, prints, sculptures, and installations. Shandu’s artistic practice generally addresses the issues of economically marginalised masses in post-apartheid South Africa. The artist is further interested in critically reflecting on the life experiences of marginalised farmers in relation to economic and social concerns.
Shandu was born in KwaMbonambi in the north of KwaZulu-Natal and is currently living and working in Durban. He graduated with a Diploma in Fine Art from the Durban University of Technology (DUT) in 2018. Shandu is currently registered for an MA in Fine Arts at DUT.
A 2018 and 2021 finalist for the Sasol New Signatures Art Awards, Shandu has also received awards for the PPC Imaginarium Art & Design Competition as well as the NSA Members Exhibition. He’s worked as an assistant curator and participated in the Thupelo Art Workshops and is currently working as a teaching assistant at DUT. Shandu has participated in multiple group exhibitions in Johannesburg and Durban with the most recent being Land at the KZNSA Gallery in Durban in 2019. Recent solo exhibitions include Azilime Ziyetsheni at the Bag Factory in 2022.
Lionel Mbayiwa (1982 – )
Lionel Tazvitya Mbayiwa is a largely self-taught artist, although he also learned from and has been influenced by his elder brother, Hugh Hatitye Mbayiwa, who was an art teacher. In addition, Mbayiwa received further mentorship from artists like James Jali and Nhavira Tendai. Through painting, drawing, sculpture and photography Mbayiwa integrates his beliefs and culture in the way he brings thought into his artistic practice. Through his drawings and paintings, the artist also engages with storytelling and fables that have personal meaning to him.
Mbawiya was born in Mhondoro, Mubaira (Chegutu District) in Zimbabwe, relocating to Cape Town, South Africa in 2009. Mbayiwa has participated in multiple group exhibitions, art fairs and projects, including Extensive Landscapes at The Cape Gallery, Cape Town (2020), the artHARARE online fair (2020) and the ArtistLab mentorship programme hosted by Latitudes Online (2021).
In 2024, the artist has participated various group exhibitions, including Transcending Boundaries at Christopher Moller Gallery, AKAA Art Fair with Bonne Esperance Gallery in France, the Investec Cape Town Art Fair with Christopher Moller Gallery, and Art at the Park Vienna Austria with Schutz Museum.
In 2023, Mbawiya took up an artist residency at Schutz Art Museum, Engelhartszell, in Austria, was part of a group exhibition at SMAC Gallery, held a solo exhibition, Takambosvika sei pano? (How did we end up here?) at Sisonke Gallery and participated in a canvas workshop at Zeitz Mocaa Museum uEducation Centre organised by Jill Trappler.
Madeleine van Manen (1966 – )
Madeleine van Manen usually paints in oils on canvas, but she also enjoys working experimentally, combining various mediums such as gouache, pastel, pencil, and charcoal.
Her immediate surroundings and personal experiences are recurring themes in her art where she explores society’s relationship to nature, cities, and each other. Van Manen has been exploring cityscapes devoid of most signs of life. This sense of “silence within noise” is further depicted in her quiet landscapes and domestic scenes.
Van Manen lives and works in Cape Town as a full-time artist. She graduated with a National Diploma in Fine Art from Port Elizabeth Technikon (now Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) in 1988. She worked in the advertising and publishing industry, collaborated with other artists, and illustrated two books of short stories. She exhibits across South Africa and her most recent solo exhibition, BUILT was shown at NEL Gallery in 2023.
Rentia Retief (1992 – )
Rentia Retief’s work is rooted in her experience of growing up in an agricultural landscape in the Overberg. Recognised for her exploration of landscapes, she renders scenes that she is familiar with. Acutely aware of the impact that humans have on the environment and animals, she is interested in the stillness of landscapes, what she refers to as ‘quiet spaces’. Working with loose and gestural brush strokes Retief aims to evoke a sense of loss.
Retief was born in Caledon and currently lives and works in Cape Town. After completing a BA in Fine Art (2014), Retief obtained an Honours in Illustration at the University of Stellenbosch (2016).
Solo exhibitions include berg is geduldig at Ebony/Curated, Cape Town (2019), Reflection at Kanonkop Wine Estate, Stellenbosch (2022) and En So Is Dit at Ebony/ Curated (2023). Retief has participated in several group exhibitions, with the latest being Country at MOK, Stellenbosch (2020), Bud at RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel (2021), The Long View at Ebony/Curated, Cape Town (2021) and Summer Trio at 131A Gallery, Cape Town (2022).
About the mentor
Nkosinathi Quwe
Nkosinathi Quwe was born in 1981 in a small, rural Eastern Cape town in South Africa called Butterworth. Surrounded by mud huts, cattle and rolling hills, he had limited exposure to art or artists, yet he had a creative streak that manifested in drawings and making figurines with clay. As art was not offered as a subject at the high school he attended, he pursued the sciences, yet when it came to choosing a field at university, he immediately opted for a degree in fine art at the University of Johannesburg.
At this institution, he majored in painting and immersed himself in the history of this traditional medium. Unexpectedly, the artists that inspired him the most – the South African artist Dumile Feni and the German expressionist Käthe Kollwitz – were known for their drawings and etchings. He was captivated by not only their expressive lines but also how their art was informed by their acute socio-political awareness of the conditions in their respective societies. Quwe was interested in the parallel between Germany and South Africa – the crimes against humanity and the loss of life during the political turmoil in those countries.
When he finished his studies, Quwe initially taught art. A job in retail was followed by a two-year stint teaching English in South Korea. On returning to South Africa, he felt he had found his voice and applied that to art, with political intent, depicting the massacre of striking mine workers during the infamous Marikana strike (2012), that led to the deaths of 35 people at the hands of police and others.
After showing his work at the Turbine Art Fair (2015) in Johannesburg, he started participating in the Spier Creative Block programme, and was selected for the 2018 Nando’s Creative Exchange, which led to a major touring exhibition of his works. This experience also set him up to be a thoughtful future mentor to fellow artists.
Quwe is interested in exploring personal transformation and what kind of rituals, triggers or paths people choose to activate change in their lives. Black communities tend to gravitate towards churches or forms of spiritual practice when they want to prompt change or find solace, according to Quwe. This is why he has opted to represent this spiritual scene, though it is not religion or spiritualism per se that he wishes to bring into focus. He is interested in exploring the desire people have for transcendence and change.
