Artist Alliance: Live Art, Be Heard

Atang Tshikare

Atang Tshikare is a Cape Town-based, self-taught multidisciplinary artist. Born in Bloemfontein in 1980, he was influenced from a young age by the visual storytelling and graphic style of his father, an anti-Apartheid activist and illustrator for various pan-African publications and art magazines. Over the last twenty years, Atang’s practice has evolved from street art and drawings to limited-edition collectible design, intersecting narrative-laden sculptural furniture and functional art.

Tshikare expresses his distinct visionary African identity through a unique visual language. Founding Zabalazaa Designs in 2010, Atang has collaborated with local artists and worked on commissions for companies such as Chimurenga Magazine, Adidas Originals, BMW, MTV Base, Belvedere Vodka and Nandos, to name a few.

He is a recipient of the Future Found Award by Southern Guild Design Foundation in 2014 and the M & G Top 200 Young South Africans in 2015. He was a judge for the Elle Decór Solve Competition (2015), the Dezeen Awards (2019) judge as well as a nominator for the British Design Museum Beazley Awards (2019).

Nadia ‘Nardstar’ Fischer

Nardstar* is a South African street artist based in Cape Town. Her unique geometric-esque style has propelled her to the top of Africa’s growing urban art universe while continually flaunting her humble nature and love for traditional graffiti lettering.

Freshness and persistence has awarded her major accolades, including packaging designs for brands such as Castle Lite beer, sneaker customisation for Converse, window displays for Woolworths and large-scale murals for aquariums and residential buildings, to international festivals and artist residencies in France, Brazil, and the USA on more than one occasion, adding her name to walls of fame, and blessing the Nike worldwide headquarters with her talent.

Formidable and flexible, she continues to wield her spray can to gain further notoriety, delving into relatable stories and pushing her own creative exploits to new heights.

Mrs + Mr Luke

Mrs + Mr Luke are dynamic artist duo Al Luke and Faatimah Mohamed-Luke.

Al Luke working as ALFA has set out to create works with complete honesty documenting his experiences visually in a very distinct manner. His artwork makes use of an expressive abstract style with the aim of visually translating personal and societal connections between humanity and theories within the fields of science, biology and mathematics. Thus far he has explored his style through a variety of media with a current focus on acrylic paint / markers and spray paint. The intention of the artist is to create and expose a new African style, which challenges the definitive global views and opinions of art in South Africa.

Faatimah Mohamed-Luke is a visual artist and designer based in Cape Town, South Africa. In 2003 she graduated from Cape Town University of Technology with ND: Fashion and began her creative journey as a founding partner of SA designer brand ‘adam&eve’. Within the fashion design industry, she has honed her artistic and entrepreneurial skills, having participated in fashion weeks and exhibitions globally for over a decade. She has since shifted her focus to art and interior design. She hopes to constantly blur the line between art and design as she evolves and grows on her journey through various creative avenues.

Gcobisa Yako

25, filmmaker

My name is Gcobisa Yako and we were born in the small city of Gqeberha, in the Eastern Cape. We have a BA in psychology and philosophy and an honours in directing and writing.

Currently, we are based in Cape Town exploring the commercial space to garner more experience, however - documentary is our true love. Archiving being our soulmate.

Our experience in existing in both the rural and suburban areas forced us to realise the beauty the rurals hold despite its poverty-stricken reality - and thus developed our passion in exploring the beauty of areas where marginalized communities
have created spaces for themselves.

Our aim is to create a cinema representative of the versatility and ordinary lives of black and brown South Africans, archive it all so that those who come after us have some kind of blue print as opposed to the blank canvas we find ourselves trying to colour with very little sense of direction and history.

Talia Ramkilawan

25, Fine Arts

Central to Talia Ramkilawan’s practice is rug hooking, a slow, accumulative process with which she creates her “tapestry adjacent” wall pieces. Her more recent preoccupations include platonic intimacy as expressed in text (the words of friends spoken or sent). “My work is about forging a sense of community and healing particular to the post-apartheid generation,” she offers. “It deals with subverting the image of family trauma by healing through making and by creating a presence. I have placed an emphasis on community and the ‘Indian experience’ – which is so important in cultural and art production – disrupting the linear narrative, exposing how traumas of the past resonate in the present. My inspiration comes from my own family dynamics and my own specific experience with South Asian identity, culture, and trauma." Talia is an artist and teacher living and working in Cape Town.

Tandile Mbatsha

25, Performance artist

Tandile is a performance artist, choreographic-activist, educator, speaker, host, producer, model and scholar based in Cape Town, South Africa. They have performed at PERFORMA17 Biennale in New York and featured in Zoe Modiga's set at Afropunk. Performed an art installation with Viviers Studio at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and opened for FAKA at the Cape Town Electronic Music Festival. Produced the Solo Ball, a film, on the virtual National Arts Festival curated programme and recently hosted and managed the event for Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education’s Pocket Queerpedia launch. They have also worked with internationally acclaimed artist Zanele Muholi.

Tandile premiered their work ‘Intyatyambo Iyaphuma Engxondorheni’ at Gavin Krastin’s Arcade, an annual nomadic platform. They seek to break hegemonic notions of existence through the use of performance art to bring about critical awareness of the LGBTIQ+ community. They identify as a gender non-conforming body living in an intersectional “male” body and are a masters candidate at the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies through the Institute for Creative Arts.

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