It’s a warm morning as a rush of deliveries create a cacophony at Keyes Art Mile in Rosebank. The insistent clamour echoes the season’s frenzy, and preparations for FNB Art Joburg are in high gear. Yet, as I sit down with Banele Khoza at the coffee shop adjacent to his BKhz gallery, he retains his characteristic sense of calm, warmth, and ease. Any stress is spinning far below the surface.
This year, FNB Art Joburg marks multiple milestones for the gallerist, curator, and artist, who has four upcoming presentations. Alongside BKhz’s group exhibition at the fair, the gallery is running an Athi-Patra Ruga solo in collaboration with Cape Town-based WHATIFTHEWORLD gallery, and Banele will show with Goodman Gallery for the first time. He is, in short, busy – yet relaxed and reflective as he enters a new chapter.
Banele turned 30 in February and BKhz turned six last month, and both his studio practice and gallery are expanding their sense of what is possible. Born in eSwatini in 1994, a flurry of early success met Banele’s arrival in the art world. Shortly after graduating with a degree in Fine Art from Tshwane University of Technology, he won numerous awards, had three solo shows across South Africa, participated in three fairs nationally and in Paris, and his work was acquired by and shown in museums. But rather than focus on his individual successes, Banele quickly widened the aperture.
From a vision born in his tween years, BKhz opened in August 2018 in Braamfontein, before moving to its Rosebank location in 2021. Showing young artists from across the continent, the gallery quickly established itself as the place to discover new voices with a playfulness, experimentation, and openness that has now become signature. Taking an artist-first approach that is supportive, considerate, and open to collaboration, the gallery focuses on nurturing relationships. “Artists choose to stay with us,” Banele says.
At FNB Art Joburg, they are exhibiting an impressive group show, featuring long-term collaborators including Zandile Tshabalala, Talia Ramkilawan, WonderBuhle, Lukhanyo Mdingi, and AthiPatra Ruga, and first-time collaborators Lebohang Kganye and Terence Maluleke. Now more established, many lessons have been learnt at BKhz, particularly with the challenges and a shifting art market over the last year. “I think by June everything felt like it had broken down, and then I took to the rebuild with the team,” he reflects. Alongside Banele, Kwanele Kunene, Francesco Mbele, Papi Konopi, and Mankebe Seakgoe form a community of like-minded creatives with the flexibility to explore their own interests and careers, while building BKhz together. Additionally, Banele credits his team of Nicole Siegenthaler and Sinki Makubu with helping him return to himself in studio practice. “I’m in a space of trust with the gallery”, he says. “I’m also trying to be more ambitious. To be honest, I think it’s possible that BKhz could one day occupy [the ranks of] Gagosian. It’s not going to be easy, but I’m in it for the journey.”
Collaborating with Athi-Patra is a pivotal moment for Banele. He first came across the artist at Woordfees Festival in 2017. “I just saw courage – the courage between masculinity and femininity, and [I haven’t] always been able to present myself that way. But to see it within their art practice as well, that courage to do performance, sculptures, and more; that’s kind of what I would like to be,” he shares.
In the last few years, Banele has been refocusing on his own studio practice, even as work at the gallery remains ‘really fulfilling’. “I think what happens is that when you avail yourself to so many people, you forget yourself,” he says. After seeing life and business coaches, Banele realised that he needed a more balanced approach to the gallery and studio and began to think about the spaces he wanted to align with. “In that moment, I just began to sit in studio,” he says. But the feeling was different.
Early in his career, works were flying out of his studio, but now he sat for long periods with completed artworks. After the initial frustration and anxiety, Banele realised it presented a moment to reflect. “It taught me how I wish to prepare for shows. The shows will pick from what the studio has, which creates no pressure about what the work should be.”
This is how selections were chosen for What’s Left Unsaid at Goodman Gallery, which opens on 5 September. Approaching the exhibition, Banele opened his archives, showing the team his work from 2013 until the present. “What’s interesting with this show is that they’re also looking back, rather than just selecting what’s new. I love that,” he says, noting that the oldest work in the show is from 2017.
Working across painting, drawing, and digital mediums, there’s a poetic intimacy to Banele’s work marked by sketching, handwritten text, and treating water as a collaborator in fluid paintings on page and canvas. With influences that range from Penny Siopis to Moshekwa Langa, Zanele Muholi and Marlene Dumas, he presents tender stories of personal experiences with love, considering masculinity, technology, and how we relate to each other. Banele is always feeling, in public.
For What’s Left Unsaid, the Goodman team has selected a tight curation of watercolours, interestingly the medium that drew Banele to art as a teenager and inspires his style. The show is a collection of abstracted self-portraits, portraits of friends, and colour washes, accompanied by a self-penned poem as wall text that urges the artist to ‘let go of perfection’. “For Goodman to select watercolours and really focus on what feels authentic to me, I think that’s the highlight,” he says. His words from an interview five years ago echo. “In the past, I would hear that I was the artist of the moment or man of the hour. Hearing this repeatedly made me realise that someone else would be taking my space once my window passes. So, starting BKhz was me offering a sense of comfort to artists and myself that the work we do isn’t just a moment, but a lifetime’s investigation.” The voice was always there.
