Nicholas Hlobo

Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town/Johannesburg

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Emerging at the end of Apartheid in 1994 at the dawn of a new South Africa free from systemic discrimination and segregation, Nicholas Hlobo’s delicate three-dimensional canvases serve as visual celebrations of previously quashed voices. As the oppressive regulations of the Apartheid government dissolved, artists like Hlobo emerged with the freedom to express themselves without fear of repercussions. This new era witnessed an unprecedented surge in creative expression, national pride and self-exploration, finally embracing the diversity of the South African people. 

It is through this lens that Nicholas Hlobo employs a myriad of elegant materials, each symbolizing a different facet of identity politics—thread, ribbon and glossy rubber— to delve into subsequent thematic streams surrounding sexual, cultural, ethnic, and gendered identities of post-apartheid South Africa, and the ever-changing dichotomies at play. These anthropomorphic forms reflect the artist’s own multi-dimensional and layered identity, weaving together to form Nicholas Hlobo as both a thoughtful creator and true South African. 

Born in 1975 in Cape Town, Nicholas Hlobo lives and works in Johannesburg, having graduated from Technikon Witwatersrand in 2002 with a degree in Fine Art. His elegant canvases have been widely exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, SCAD Museum of Art, Tate Modern, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the 19th Biennale of Sydney, the Liverpool Biennale, Tate Modern, and the Boston ICA, among others.