Published 15 April 2024 in Announcements
Kutlwano Monyai
Biography
Kutlwano Monyai (b. 1996), is a scholar and artist based in Pretoria. She has recently completed a post graduate diploma in Fine and Applied Arts at the Tshwane university of technology. As an artist, Monyai has been part of several group exhibitions and local art fairs, including the ‘GenXis’ group exhibition, in 2018 and KASRP exhibition in 2019 hosted at the Pretoria Art Museum.
In 2021, she exhibited at the bag factory in a show titled Summer Salon 30th Anniversary. She exhibited with UNTITLD Collective at the Turbine Art Fair in 2019, earlier the same year, she completed a residency at Modern Arts Projects South Africa in the Karoo. She was later awarded the Young Woman Studio Residency (YWSR) at the Bag Factory towards the end of 2021.
In her work, she explores the bondage, generational knowledge, and aesthetic wisdom within her own family through archives of domestic objects. Monyai explores complexities of materialities by weaving with plastic. Revealing generational archives, skills, knowledge and experiences from aesthetic understanding, economic struggles, and terrestrial/environmental connections. Connections that often reflect on shared lived practices, revealing abstract nuanced relationships that narrate stories about her maternal and paternal lineages and her community. Her weaving methodologies were passed down through observations, conversations, and by practices through her maternal lineage. They are a stepping stone that provides points of reference in her work. As a scholar and researcher, Monyai is curious and interested in the history of black women’s archival practices within their studio/ working environments.
Monyai has worked on cultural and artistic community projects through established cultural spaces such as the Pretoria art Museum and the Javett Art Centre. She currently a part-time lecturer at the Tshwane University of technology. Her curatorial interest stems from the edge to archive exhibitions, women’s archival practices for comprehensive historical records.
Exhibitions
2023 100% Design Africa with Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg.
2023 “The 2020’s new forms of abstraction-Part 1”, Bernam Contemporary.
2023 O mang? O tswa kae? O ya kae? Constitution Hill, Johannesburg
2022 Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards, Johannesburg.2022 Sasol new
signatures top 100, Pretoria Art Museum.
2022 Moleskine Foundation, ArtWork What comes first? ConstitutionHill,
Johannesburg.
2022 Summer Salon exhibition, Bag Factory Studios, Johannesburg.
2022 Young women studio bursary award 2022 exhibition, Bag Factory
Studios, Johannesburg.
2022 Materiality Matters, Curator Els Van Mourik, Berman
Contemporary,Johannesburg
2022 #ARTladies, curator Gcotyelwa Mashiqa, Berman
Contemporary, Johannesburg
2022 BREAKING THE MOULD, curated by Els van Mourik, Berman
Contemporary, Johannesburg
2021 Summer Salon 30th Anniversary exhibition, Bag Factory,
Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 Mapped Diaries, Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 The threads that bind us at, The viewing room art gallery, South Africa
2020 Reflections, The viewing room gallery, South Africa
2020On a good day, Johann VanHeerden art gallery, South Africa
2019 KASRP, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
2019 Turbine artfair under “UNTITLD”, Johannesburg, South Africa
2019 Genesis X’hibition at BKhz, Johannesburg, South Africa
2018 Interpreting the intangible at Victoria yards- Joburg Fringe,
Johannesburg, South Africa
2018 The Unexpected, The viewing room gallery, South Africa
2018 Genesis X’hibition, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
2017 Abstraction through figuration, Art Lovers gallery, Pretoria, South
Africa
2016Hybrid culture, Tut Art gallery (23 September 2016), South Africa
2016 Top 100 Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards (24 September 2016), South
Africa
Residencies
2021 Young Womxn Studio Residency Award: Bag Factory
2021 Beads & Air (MAPSA) Modern Arts Projects South
Africa
2019 Kopanong Art Studio Residency Programme: Pretoria Art Museum
Publications
2022 On the Map, Kutlwano Angela Monyai uses paint, crochet, and fabric to embody the Black female.Design Indaba, March 2022
2022 Announcing Design Indaba’s Emerging Creatives Class of 2022, Design Indaba, January 2022
2021 Kutlwano Monyai – Young Womxn Studio Bursary, Bag Factory, October
2021 Meet the 2021 Bag Factory Young Womxn Studio Bursary Award winners, Creative feel, September 2021
2019 Artists Kutlwano Monyai and Mbhoni Khosa in Tandem at Pretoria Art Museum, De Beer Necessities, November 2019
Video
2021 Artist Kutlwano Monyai tells us about her career and latest accolade. You Tube. SABC News.
2021 Momentum Science of Success 2021. Facebook/InstagramAwards