Cape Town-based artists Ben Stanwix and Xhanti Zwelendaba won the inaugural Investec Emerging Artist Award at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair. The award highlights South Africa’s rising artistic talent, celebrating promising artists yet to stage a solo museum or international exhibition. Stanwix and Zwelendaba, represented by Reservoir Gallery, won the award for Thaba Nchu, a 2025 artwork crafted from assorted fabrics and cotton canvas. The piece explores South Africa’s complex historical narratives, drawing inspiration from a real postage stamp depicting a missionary gathering in Thaba Nchu during the 1830s – a moment of transformation in the region’s history.
We spoke to Ben following his win.
YLA: What does art mean to you?
Ben: Being in the studio allows you to engage with the world in ways that both do and do not make sense. A successful work contains both of these elements, it’s legible or familiar in some way, but not known. This is what I appreciate in all art.
There’s a quote by the Australian poet Les Murray that I go back to; ‘The questions to ask of any creation are: What’s the dream dimension in this? How good is the forebrain thinking, but also how good is the dream here? Where’s the dance in it, and how good is that? How well integrated are all three; or if there is dissonance, is that productive? And, finally, what larger poem is this one in? Who or what does it honour? Who does it want to kill?’
YLA: Why did you choose to focus on history as a focus point?
Ben: I’m interested in how we try to make sense of the past, individually and collectively. Before going to art school and spending time in the studio more seriously I studied History and Economics. In South Africa, it’s impossible to understand the present without attempting to make some sense of the past. This is the case in many places, but in South Africa particularly, the past lives with us in the present.
YLA: How much research goes into a project like yours before the work starts?
Ben: It depends on what we’re wanting to achieve. We don’t really spend a lot of time discussing ideas, the work is often more intuitive. There is an understanding of what different images or materials can mean and what might be successful for us as a way of working. A lot of time is spent dealing with materials, and testing out how we want something to look or feel.
YLA: History has many different versions – how did you decide to focus on one narrative?
Ben: We don’t have a single narrative in this piece or any of our collaborative work. We try to present work that can be read in different and often opposing ways.
YLA: Where to from here?
Ben: We each have independent studio practices and projects we spend time on. The collaborative work has its own energy and planning too far ahead can risk what makes it enjoyable and surprising. If we both feel there are more works we’d like to make, then hopefully we’ll find a way to do that.
