Meet the FNB Art Joburg winner: Dada Khanyisa

The 15^th edition of the FNB Art Joburg has officially announced its winner – Dada Khaniysa

A multidisciplinary artist working in paint, sculpture and installation, with a focus on the contemporary Black experience, Dada Khanyisa’s work comments on the human condition as it plays out in social, financial and architectural contexts in metropolises like Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Born in Umzimkhulu, KwaZulu-Natal but raised in Johannesburg, Khanyisa now lives and works in Cape Town.

After studying Traditional and Digital Animation at the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa, Khanyisa went to the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art and completed a Bachelor of Fine Art degree.

“Receiving this prize is affirming, especially at this point in my career. Looking back at what has been five years of building a practice, developing a style and coming into my own as a maker of things, this prize is unexpected but welcomed conclusion to the introductory era,” said Khanyisa.

“I draw a lot of my inspiration from happy hour. I just love how people come alive after 5pm, and how they prepare for it and participate in it. This is at the heart of my work,” Khanyisa said at the launch of the FNB Art Joburg.

As the winner of the 2022 prize, Khanyisa will have a solo exhibition at Johannesburg Art Gallery where the largest art collection on the continent resides.

As Africa’s leading and longest running contemporary art fair, FNB Art Joburg’s mandate is to sustainably support and grow the continent’s cultural offering in ways that go beyond the fair. One of the ways this is achieved is through the annual FNB Art Prize.

With this prize, Khanyisa joins previous winners Wycliffe Mundopa, Lady Skollie, Bronwyn Katz, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Peju Alatise, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Turiya Magadlela, Portia Zvavahera, Nelisiwe Xaba, Mocke J van Veuren and Kudzanai Chiurai. This in addition to receiving a cash prize as well as the above mentioned solo exhibition.

Before winning the FNB Art Prize, Khanyisa received the Simon Gerson Prize at UCT in 2016. Before that as a merit winner at the SA Taxi Art Awards in 2015, their work was featured on 10 publicly operating taxis making their way through Johannesburg.

Continuously looking to develop their practice, Khanyisa is currently in residence at the Cité Internationale des arts in Paris. This is their second residency after 2018 sway them participating in a Fountainhead Residency in Miami.

“I’d like to thank FNB Art Joburg for the prize, for watering my practice with this validation. Then to my family, for not asking any questions and supporting my dreams in very real ways like commissioning me to make portraits when I was still a kid to my mom for financing the foundation of the dream. I hope people see this and it encourages them to do right by the artists they see coming up in their families.”

In addition to showing work at art fairs in London, Miami and Hamburg, Khanyisa has had or participated in various art exhibitions.