SETLAMORAGO MASHILO

(b. 1987, Pretoria, South Africa)

Installation artist Setlamorago Mashilo is a trained visual artist who lives and works in Pretoria. He graduated High School in 2005 and his development as an artist was profoundly influenced by his introduction to postmodern theory and his Sepedi upbringing. Mashilo works in various media including drawing, sculpture, and printmaking.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Mashilo is compelled by a sense of social conscience. He incorporates proverbs and idioms in his mother tongue (Sepedi) into his multidisciplinary art practice, to translate the community’s oral histories into artistic interventions and installations.

Continuing the thread from his earlier works, Mashilo’s work centres around the consequences of dwelling, building, and thinking, by articulating and interrogating narratives that resonate individually and collectively about our sense of loss, nostalgia, and inherited memories. His work becomes a form of conversation about our society’s values; how they are deeply encoded in our language and in our objects and, ultimately, how that shapes the communities of which we are a part.

Mashilo’s first solo exhibition was in the Netherlands, and he has also exhibited in South Africa, the UK, Germany, and China. Recent awards in South Africa include the Facebook Fan’s choice at the 2013 PPC Young Concrete Sculptor Awards and the Turbine Art Fair and Sylt Emerging Artist award in 2014.

SELECTED AWARDS/RESIDENCIES

2013 PPC Young Concrete Sculptor Award

2014 Turbine Art Fair & Sylt Emerging Artist Award

2015 Sylt Residency

2016 MAP/GNAP Residency

2020 SAFFCA Residency

2021 Everard Read Leeu Estate Residency

SELECTED PUBLIC COMMISSIONS/COLLECTIONS

Modern Art Projects (MAP)

OR Tambo Foundation

Zakithi Nkosi Clinical Haematology Centre of Excellence

Public Service Pension Fund Swaziland

Mineworkers Investment Company Pty Ltd

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018 The Land Will Decide, Everard Read Johannesburg

2020 Visions of the Interior, Knysna Fine Art

2021 Against the Grain, Everard Read Johannesburg

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013 PPCYCSA, Pretoria Artist Association

2014 Contemporary Totem Poles (Cool Capital Biennale)

2015 Capital Present, Fried Contemporary

2015 “The Spiritual in the Material”, Lizamore & Associates

2015 Turbine Art Fair

2015 FETISH, Albany Museum

2015 Shanghai Art Fair

2015 New Voices, Lizamore

2016 Tokyo International Art Fair

2016 Performing Wo/Man, North-West University Gallery

2016 Amandla, Oliewenhuis Art Museum

2016 Rotterdam International Art Fair

2016 GNAP Nature Biennale

2017 Sacred Hymns & Asphalt Prayers, KKNK

2017 Re:thinking Kakotopia, University of Johannesburg

2019 Conversing the Land, UJ Art Gallery

2020 Us, Everard Read 

2020 Odyssey, Everard Read

2020 Tiny Show, Everard Read Johannesburg

2020 Portrait Show, Everard Read Johannesburg

2020 Journeys of the Mind, Everard Read Franschhoek

2020 Imago, Everard Read Franschhoek

2020 Finer Things, Knysna Fine art in association with Everard Read

2021 Spring Show, Everard Read Johannesburg

2021 Summer Show, Everard Read Franschhoek