Senzeni Marasela’s installation of works at Koyo Kouoh’s tremendous ‘In Minor Keys’ at the 61st International Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia is on preview and opens to the public tomorrow.
Marasela presents an installation of seven large-scale suspended textile works that incorporate cascading lengths of red wool hand-stitched onto tjali, mixed-fabric ceremonial blankets.
The stitch patterns trace maps of mine slopes that have collapsed, and the titles refer to notorious mining disasters in South Africa, with their location, date and human toll.
Our heartfelt congratulations to Senzeni for producing this monumental body of work and also to the ‘In Minor Keys’ curatorial team for all of their assistance these past 8 months.
#senzenimarasela #venicebiennale #inminorkeys #koyokouoh
As we get closer to the opening of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia ‘In Minor Keys’, we look forward to seeing you next week in Venice with Senzeni Marasela.
‘In Minor Keys’, curated by Koyo Kouoh, will unfold across the Arsenale, Giardini and multiple sites throughout the city. This brings together a dynamic constellation of artists alongside a host of other exhibitions and national pavilions on show.
Taking place in the days leading up to the official opening on Saturday, 9 May 2026, the pre-opening offers an early moment to engage with Kouoh’s expansive curatorial vision, one grounded in relationality, resonance, and a commitment to artist-centred practice. ‘In Minor Keys’ reflects a deeply collaborative process, shaped alongside Kouoh’s curatorial team and carried forward in honour of her enduring legacy.
📍Senzeni Marasela
In Minor Keys, curated by Koyo Kouoh
Arsenale
#ebonycurated #senzenimarasela #BiennaleArte2026 #InMinorKeys #venice
EBONY/CURATED is pleased to present ‘Nothing Has Been Whole For Some Time’, a group exhibition opening Wednesday, 29 April 2026 at 18:00 at our Loop Street gallery.
There are moments when the world stops holding together in the way we expect it to. Time slips. Edges blur. What seemed singular begins to double, to echo, to layer. The familiar remains, but it no longer settles into place. This quiet unravelling marks the threshold at which surrealist impulses take hold, shifting perception from the external world to the interior terrain of the self.
Bringing together artists from across the diaspora, ‘Nothing Has Been Whole For Some Time’ explores fragmentation, interiority, and the shifting boundaries of perception through contemporary surrealist approaches. Quiet, as an inevitable part of being human, becomes the condition through which these impulses emerge, not as resistance, but as vulnerability and exposure. It is within this interior space that realities shaped by memory, mental health, care, and history take form.
Across varied and intuitive practices, the works hold multiplicity without requiring resolution. Here, grief is not exceptional but embedded in everyday life, both routine and resistant. These practices do not seek to stabilise meaning; instead, they rework memory and gesture toward forms of continuity beyond loss.
To request the exhibition catalogue, email us at [email protected]
Participating Artists |
Churchill Ongere
Hargreaves Ntukwana
Jaden Wells
Liam van der Heever
Masindi Nafisa Mbolekwa
Mzuzile Mduduzi Xakaza
Mhlonishwa Zulu
Nazeer Jappie
Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi
Nwabisa Ntlokwana
Raymond Fuyana
Teresa Kutala Firmino
Ulriche Jantjes
#ebonycurated #artgallery #groupexhibition #nothinghasbeenwholeforsometime #surrealism
As ‘Always Becoming’ enters its final days, we return to Anico Mostert’s paintings as sites of quiet transition, where the self is continuously unfolding, extending beyond what can be easily named.
Mostert’s practice moves through what resists language. She encapsulates the unfamiliar terrain where the self expands and reconfigures. Her paintings on canvas and paper accumulate in layers, each surface built through intuitive marks that hold the weight of lived experience and emotional memory.
This body of work understands identity as motion rather than fixture. With expressive colour and gestural brushwork, Mostert translates the ongoing act of transformation, reminding us that we exist perpetually in process. These are paintings about change as constant, about the self as something we move through rather than arrive at.
We invite you to visit our Loop Street gallery to experience Anico Mostert’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, ‘Always Becoming’. For more information, visit the viewing room via the link in our bio.
Always Becoming | Anico Mostert | EBONY/CURATED, Loop Street
#EBONYCURATED #artgallery #AnicoMostert #AlwaysBecoming #soloexhibition
Kamohelo Blessing Rooi paints what it feels like to live, the figures, the spaces, the quiet social moments most of us walk past. In this week's edition of The Faces of RMB Latitudes, he invites us into an intimate archive built from lived experience.
RMB Latitudes returns to the enchanting Shepstone Gardens, 22 – 24 May 2026. Tickets are going fast, click the link in our bio to secure yours!
Watch the full video on our YouTube page.
Filmed & edited by Jonathan Pinkhard (@pink_hard )
Creative Director & Producer: Chelsea Selvan (@chelseaselvan_art )
Produced by RMB Latitudes
#RMBLatitudes #RMBLatitudesArtFair #RMBLatitudes2026 #RMBLatitudesArtFair2026
Through a series of six short films, The Faces of RMB Latitudes offers an intimate window into some of the artists and creative voices at the centre of contemporary African art today.
This week, Kamohelo Blessing Rooi takes us on a journey. Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, he creates an intimate archive of Soweto’s emotional landscape. His paintings often centre on figures, style, domestic spaces, and social moments, capturing the beauty and complexity of the everyday. The result is both personal and cultural, a tender form of documentation that turns his lived experience into iconic images and atmosphere.
RMB Latitudes is set to take place in the enchanting Shepstone Gardens from 22 May - 24 May 2026. Be sure to get your tickets before they sell out!
Watch the full video on our YouTube page, and follow the link in our bio for more info and to purchase tickets.
Filmed & edited by Jonathan Pinkhard (@pink_hard )
Creative Director & Producer: Chelsea Selvan (@chelseaselvan_art )
Produced by RMB Latitudes
#RMBLatitudes #RMBLatitudesArtFair #RMBLatitudes2026 #RMBLatitudesArtFair2026
Joining EBONY/CURATED for their first EXPO Chicago showcase are emerging contemporaries Kamohelo Blessing Rooi and Balekane Legoabe, along side Senzeni Marasela.
Rooi’s practice is rooted in Soweto’s lived experiences and social rhythms. Drawing from photographs, personal encounters, and everyday scenes, Rooi captures moments of fashion, friendship and introspection, oscillating between intimacy and monumentality through his evolving visual language.
Legoabe explores the relationship between nature, spirituality, and identity through personal and collective histories. Influenced by ancient rock art and African, Eastern, and Western mythologies, she weaves language, metaphor, and ritual into layered narratives that mirror natural cycles of birth, decline, resilience, and change.
Completing the line-up is Senzeni Marasela, whose large-scale fabric works engage with the lived experiences of Black South African women through historical and personal narratives. Through acts of stitching, repetition, and embodied storytelling, Marasela foregrounds memory, resilience, and intergenerational dialogue. Her work is held in major international collections, including MoMA (New York), the Smithsonian (Washington), the Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey), and the Iziko South African National Gallery (Cape Town).
Explore the full EXPO Chicago presentation and discover more about the artists and works on .
#ebonycurated #expochicago2026 #balekanelegoabe #kamoheloblessingrooi #senzenimarasela
EBONY/CURATED is delighted to present our 2026 EXPO Chicago booth, exhibiting a dynamic selection of artists in the Galleries section. The EXPO CHICAGO Contemporary Art Fair returns to Navy Pier, featuring over 130 leading galleries from across the United States and the globe, alongside a dynamic programme of talks, on-site installations and special events.
The Galleries section features leading international galleries, alongside an expanded partnership with the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center. Returning for the fair’s 13th edition, EBONY/CURATED’s showcase, located in booth 117, features a curated selection of multidisciplinary works by Balekane Legoabe, Craig Cameron-Mackintosh, Hugh Byrne, Ian Garrett, John Newdigate, Kamohelo Blessing Rooi, Oliver Scarlin, Plácido ‘Pocho’ Guimaraes, and Senzeni Marasela.
Booth | 117
Opening Hours |
Thursday, April 9 | noon—8:00pm (Invitation Only)
Thursday, April 9 | 5:00pm–8:00pm (Opening Night, Limited Availability Ticket)
Friday, April 10 | 11:00am–7:00pm
Saturday, April 11 | 11:00am–7:00pm
Sunday, April 12 | 11:00am–6:00pm
For tickets and event details, visit expochicago.com.
#ebonycurated #artgallery #expochicago2026 #contemporaryartfair #navypier
EBONY/CURATED returns to EXPO Chicago this April for its fourth presentation. Taking place from 9 – 12 April at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, the fair convenes a strong international roster of leading modern and contemporary galleries, offering collectors access to significant works alongside a curated programme of talks, installations, and public projects. Since its founding in 2012, EXPO Chicago has become a key destination for collectors, combining the city’s longstanding cultural legacy with a focused presentation of today’s most compelling artistic practices. Following its acquisition by Frieze in 2023, the fair continues to expand its global reach, attracting an increasingly international audience of collectors, curators, and institutions.
EBONY/CURATED will be exhibiting in the Galleries Section, booth 117, with new works by Balekane Legoabe, Craig Cameron-Mackintosh, Hugh Byrne, Ian Garrett, John Newdigate, Kamohelo Blessing Rooi, Oliver Scarlin, Placido ‘Pocho’ Guimaraes and Senzeni Marasela.
To be added to our 2026 EXPO Chicago digital catalogue waiting list, email us at [email protected].
#ebonycurated #expochicago #artfair #galleries #northerntrust
In the final days of ‘Insomnia’, we reflect on Karen Elkington’s paintings as mirrors, showing us the exhaustion we carry, the paralysis we recognise, the stillness that offers no rest.
Elkington’s latest body of work explores a particular kind of exhaustion, one that extends beyond the personal into the collective. Her figures occupy spaces between sleep and surrender, their bodies draped across sofas and exteriors in poses that suggest both comfort and defeat. These are not scenes of peaceful rest but of collapse, reflecting a cultural paralysis in the face of overwhelming crisis. Working with luminous colour and dreamlike atmosphere, Elkington captures what it feels like to exist in a world suspended between urgency and inaction. Her paintings ask us to recognise ourselves in these prostrate forms, to consider the weight of fatigue when action feels impossible and retreat seems the only option.
We invite you to visit our Bordeaux House gallery this Easter weekend to experience Karen Elkington’s ‘Insomnia’, on view until Sunday, 12 April 2026. Kindly take note of our operating hours across all branches, and we wish you a wonderful Easter weekend.
EBONY/CURATED Cape Town
Friday 3rd April - Monday 6th April | Closed
EBONY/CURATED Bordeaux House and Franschhoek Square
Friday 3rd April | Closed
Saturday 4th April | 09h30 - 18h00
Sunday 5th April | 09h30 - 17h00
Monday 6th April | 09h30 - 18h00
#ebonycurated #artgallery #karenelkington #insomnia #soloexhibition
We are pleased to share that contemporary ceramists Ian Garrett and John Newdigate will undertake a residency at Louis Lefebvre & Fils in Versailles. Established to preserve and extend a lineage of specialist ceramic knowledge, the residency supports the development of technically ambitious and conceptually rigorous work.
Situated within the historic former music pavilion of Madame Élisabeth, the programme offers a focused period of production, culminating in a presentation of new work. Engaging directly with the site’s material heritage, both artists explore expanded approaches to ceramic practice, responding to the dialogue between tradition and contemporary form.
Congratulations to Ian and John on this opportunity, we look forward to seeing the work that emerges from their time in Versailles.
#iangarrett #johnnewdigate #artistresidency #cermics #versailles
EBONY/CURATED is pleased to announce the representation of Kamohelo Blessing Rooi.
Born in 2001 in Gauteng, South Africa, and based in Soweto, Rooi’s practice is grounded in a sustained engagement with the social and spatial dynamics of township life. His work considers Soweto not only as a site of lived experience, but as a complex cultural and psychological landscape shaped by memory, identity, and collective presence.
Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, Rooi’s ongoing body of work, Kasiflavour (“location flavour”), operates as both homage and archive. Drawing on personal encounters, photographic references, and quotidian observation, his paintings are characterised by saturated colour, flattened perspective, and a confident approach to figuration. These works frequently evoke nocturnal scenes in Soweto, where gestures of style, intimacy, and social exchange unfold within carefully constructed pictorial spaces.
Rooi’s practice resists straightforward documentation, instead producing images that occupy a space between remembrance and reinterpretation. His figures, often poised within familiar yet stylised environments, articulate both individual presence and shared experience. Through this approach, Rooi advances a nuanced visual language that foregrounds dignity, complexity, and the evolving textures of contemporary urban life in South Africa.
EBONY/CURATED will present new paintings by Rooi at EXPO CHICAGO in April 2026 and RMB Latitudes Art Fair in May 2026. For information about the artist, head over to our website at
Image by Simba Takaedza @simba.raws
