Open Studio WonderBuhle
Below you can find the video of WonderBuhle’s open studio last month in Durban, South Africa. The film is by Earl Abrahams.
“The reason why we’re all here is that I’m doing a show in Amsterdam. I’m making a tradition that every time I’m sending a show outside the country, I will have an open studio, so we can celebrate the work and accompany these new species, new powers, spirits and energies. The work is already accompanied in a special place because of you guys being here. I appreciate it.” – Words by WonderBuhle during the open studio he organized before the works were transported to Amsterdam.
ABOUT WonderBuhle
WonderBuhle, born 1989 in South Africa, is a Durban-based visual artist from Kwa-Ngcolosi, a village that is still ruled by a chief. He started making art as a hobby at the age of nine. He says that his mother encouraged him to explore art as a career as he used to play with charcoal from the fire and draw stick figures on the walls of the house as a child.
WonderBuhle received his first formal training through the BAT Centre Artists in Residency (AIR) Program and went on to study fine art through the Velobala apprenticeship program at Durban University of Technology, under the mentorship of Themba Shibase.
The artist states: “I understand my artistic practice as a space between my inner soul, my dreams and my identity. I communicate my views from where I am standing as a black youth in South African society and the world at large. South Africa is in a moment of self-realization; reflecting and embracing its cultural diversities, whilst rewriting its stories through the lenses of young people who are curious, like myself.”
WonderBuhle had his first solo exhibition at the Durban Art Gallery in 2018 and has been included in numerous group shows at Unit, (London, 2020); The Art House (Wakefield, 2018); Michaelis Gallery (Cape Town, 2017); KZNSA (Durban, 2015) and the African Art Centre (Durban, 2014). In 2016, he was the recipient of Bremer Kunststipendium Art Grant (three-month residency) and in 2020; he took part in the La Brea Studio Artists Residency in L.A.
