Meet the artists: A aalkabout with the 2026 Sasol New Signatures winners
Saturday, 24 October 2026, 11:00
With just one month left to view the 2026 Sasol New Signatures exhibition, art lovers are invited to join a special walkabout at the Pretoria Art Museum at 11:00 on Saturday, 24 October 2026.
Sasol Art Curator Cate Terblanche will be joined by some of the 2026 award winners to explore this year's exhibition and share insights into their work. Visitors will have the opportunity to hear directly from the artists about their creative processes, the ideas behind their work and the journeys that have shaped their artistic practices. The walkabout offers an opportunity to experience the exhibition, meet some of its featured artists and gain a deeper appreciation of the work on display.
The exhibition is on view at the Pretoria Art Museum until 8 November 2026.
Contact Nandi Hilliard from the Association of Arts Pretoria on 012 346 3100, 083 288 5117 or artspta@mweb.co.za
2026 SASOL NEW SIGNATURES ART COMPETITION | WINNERS AND FINALISTS
Until 8 November 2026 | North and South Galleries, Henry Preiss Hall
OVERALL WINNER: Sphumelele Zondi (26) - Johannesburg, The laundry of a nation (2026), mixed media
Born in KwaZulu-Natal and now based in Johannesburg, Zondi works primarily in sculpture and mixed media. Her practice explores memory, inherited narratives and the relationship between past and present, drawing on personal and collective histories, resilience, and the emotional traces embedded in everyday materials. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from the Durban University of Technology.
In The laundry of a nation , Zondi reflects on the emotional and social inheritance carried by young people within contemporary South Africa. Drawing from the visual language of clothing, labour, domesticity and repetition, the work considers how national histories continue to live within ordinary bodies and everyday materials.
RUNNER-UP: Sive Ntombana (23) - Makhanda, Umlandeli , collected ochres and primer on blanket
The 2026 runner-up is Sive Ntombana (23), a painter and mural artist based in Makhanda who is currently doing a Master of Fine Arts at Rhodes University. Ntombana receives a prize of R25 000. His work titled Umlandeli forms part of a practice-based research project exploring the concept of trauma in the Xhosa in the rural Eastern Cape. The body of work examines how trauma is interpreted, engaged with and experienced in different states through a reflexive perspective. "I work with ingcawe (a traditional Xhosa white blanket featuring a distinct dark or black stripe) and collected ochres to reference the rural," said Ntombana. "Through collecting and working with ochres, I invoke ukusula , a mural painting practice in the Mpondo rural area, to think about healing in practice and as a practice."
MERIT WINNERS
The five Merit Award winners receive R10 000 each, and they are (in alphabetical order):
Charlie de Bruto (21) - Pretoria, Ball buster , mixed media
Inga Lokwe (28) - Pretoria, Qula kwedini, g lass, metal, wood
Wisani Manyisi (41) - Johannesburg, Dance of memory , mixed media on paper
Thomas Masingi (35) - Polokwane, The desire to become one series , digital photography on true ivory
Charné Mungur (49) - Gqeberha, Echoes of silence , steel
For more information:
www.sasolsignatures.co.za
Official hashtag #SasolNewSignatures
Contact Nandi Hilliard from the Association of Arts Pretoria on 012 346 3100, 083 288 5117 or artspta@mweb.co.za
Facebook: Sasol New Signatures https://www.facebook.com/SasolNewSignatures
Instagram: sasolnewsignatures https://www.instagram.com/sasolnewsignatures/
X: SasolSA https://x.com/sasolsa
TikTok Sasolltd https://www.tiktok.com/@sasolltd
YouTube Sasol https://youtube.com/@sasol
LinkedIn Sasol http://www.linkedin.com/company/sasol
ARTFLUX - EDUCATION ASSISTANTS | East Gallery | Until 25 October 2026
The education assistants of the Pretoria Art Museum, primarily comprising art students from academic institutions in Gauteng, are the backbone of the educational experience at the museum. As part of their work-integrated learning programmes and in-service training, they conduct guided tours and facilitate art-making workshops on behalf of the museum for visiting schools and the general public.
ArtFlux Exhibition 2026 showcases a body of work by ten education assistants who were attached to the Pretoria Art Museum during 2025 and 2026. The exhibition is not thematically arranged. It aims to show the concerns and preoccupations of these cohorts of artists that emerged from the Preparatory Programme since 2019 when the last exhibition of the education assistants was staged.
The exhibition will close on Sunday, 25 October 2026.
For more information and enquiries, please contact one of the following:
Karabo Nqeketho: 071 823 6781 or karabokimnqeketho@gmail.com
Mmutle A Kgokong (Museum): 012 359 6752 or mmutlekg@tshwane.gov.za
COROBRIK CERAMIC COLLECTION 1977-2025 | Rotating exhibition | Ceramic Gallery
Ceramics that were acquired at the Ceramics Southern Africa Regional Exhibition Gauteng are now on show. The latest acquisitions are from Mathiba Molefe-Simelane, Kevin Collins, Gillian Clark, Meriel May and Dale Lambert.
The Corobrik Collection is a contemporary collection of ceramics that represents the development of studio ceramics and the work of rural traditional South African potters over almost five decades. Initially, the collection was started by Stellenbosch Farmers Winery, which in 1977 became the sponsor of national and regional exhibitions by the Association of Potters of Southern Africa (APSA) and purchased the winning pieces from these exhibitions. In 1982, Corobrik became the sponsor of APSA (now Ceramics Southern Africa) and acquired the collection. Since then, further acquisitions from exhibitions and pieces contributed by members have been added to the collection. The earliest acquired pieces date from 1977 and the newest from 2025.
A STORY OF SOUTH AFRICAN ART | Ongoing | Albert Werth Hall
This selection of artworks from the permanent collection of the Pretoria Art Museum briefly reviews South African art. It includes works by early twentieth-century painters, the Resistance artists of the 1980s and artists of the twenty-first century. The exhibition is based on the secondary school syllabus.
WE WELCOME BAHLAKOANA LESEMANE TO THE PRETORIA ART MUSEUM TEAM
The Pretoria Art Museum is pleased to welcome Bahlakoana Lesemane, who joins the museum as an additional curator, effective from August 2026.
Lesemane is a South African curator and collections practitioner with a BA in Art History and Anthropology. He has worked at the OR Tambo Cultural Precinct, Museum Africa and the Constitutional Court Art Collection. His appointment at the Pretoria Art Museum builds on his experience in collections management, conservation, exhibition development, research and heritage interpretation. His interests include contemporary art, African cultural heritage, ethnomusicology, oral history, music history and the conservation of tangible and intangible heritage. As a musician, he is particularly interested in the relationships between sound, cultural memory, identity and historical experience.
The Pretoria Art Museum looks forward to his contribution to the museum's curatorial work and its ongoing engagement with South African art, cultural heritage and diverse public audiences.
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS/EVENTS
A FRIENDLY REMINDER: ARTWORKS DONATED BY THE FRIENDS OF THE PRETORIA ART MUSEUM
November 2026 until early 2027 | South Gallery
Since the Friends of the Pretoria Art Museum was founded in 1967, they have donated a wide range of artworks to the Pretoria Art Museum. The purpose was to enlarge the museum's permanent collection, mainly with art by South African artists. This exhibition will showcase all the artworks donated over the past six decades.
ROOTED IN ART: PLANTS, PEOPLE AND THE MATERIAL WORLD
31 October 2026 until March 2027 | East Gallery
Opening to the public on 31 October 2026, Rooted in Art brings together paintings, prints, sculpture and ceramics from the Pretoria Art Museum's permanent collection, exploring the relationships between plants, people and the material world.
The exhibition examines plants' connections to land, belonging, labour, colonialism, ancestry, memory, ritual and healing. It also considers natural materials, especially wood, and the role of plants and natural forms in art, domestic life and lived spaces. Rather than presenting plants solely as subjects of beauty, Rooted in Art highlights the histories, knowledge and cultural meanings embedded in the botanical world, inviting reflection on the connections between art, nature and human experience.
GUIDED TOURS
For information on guided tours, contact Mmutle A Kgokong on 012 358 6752 or mmutlekg@tshwane.gov.za .
CENTURION ART GALLERY
Centurion Art Gallery is a commercial art gallery where local artists can exhibit and sell their artworks. The gallery aims to show a variety of art forms, to exhibit emerging talent and to promote Tshwane artists in particular.
For enquiries, contact the gallery on 083 328 6491 or 083 274 2221.
Centurion Art Gallery is open on Mondays to Fridays from 09:00 to 16:00 and on Saturdays from 09:00 to 13:00.
The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays.
Centurion Art Gallery, cnr Cantonments Road and Union Avenue, Lyttelton, Centurion