Katlego Tlabela

Katlego Tlabela is a Cape Town based artist who focuses on printmaking and works on paper, while sometimes exploring
installation. His work grapples with contemporary struggles of idenitity and often references music and other
art mediums to inform his print making which arises through text based works and musical installation. Tlabela recently
has looked specifically at the way that history can repeat itself through trends and ways of interaction and has unpacked
these ideas through his prints, often placing himself into historically styled works or in the place of formal portraits of
monarchies.

The political and the personal merges and mingles through Tlabela’s work, with pride and defiance.
Difficult questions are confronted and raised through the history of printmaking and Tlabela looks at reconstituting the
structures of art making and the narratives displayed and prioritized.

Tlabela’s work has taken part in numerous group exhibitions locally and internationally from Michaelis Galleries, in Cape
Town to Brazil, Poland and Portugal and art fairs locally, recently the Turbine Art Fair 2015. In 2016 Tlabela has taken part
in two group shows at Muller’s Gallery (Cape Town) and SMAC Gallery (Stellenbosch). Tlabela has recently exhibited
at the 2016 Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg alongside South Africa’s emerging fine artists represented by Blaque Inq
Contemporaries. He is also completing a body of work titled Negro Sunshine as part of his Graduate Show at Michaelis
School of Fine Art. Katlego wishes to complete his Masters in Fine Art either at Michaelis or abroad.