Rising Sun 2
Matchsticks, balsa wood and glass shards
124cm x 95cm
2026
The craziest realisation of this work is the natural negative space patterns that emerge from putting these shapes together. Who knew I was going to create a perfect circle of glass while trying to make sense of the matchstick pattern.
There’s something there about energy and output and the unknown effects of actions.
The handshakes not worth the grip 11
43cm x 18cm x 40cm
Imbuia, stainless steel, bricks and spray paint
2026
One of my personal favourite forms from the show.
The Handshakes not worth the grip 9
30x27x21cm
2026
Forms part of my solo exhibition by the same title.
A body of work that explored power dynamics via the relationship of a hammer and a nail. I wanted it to be raw and honest and not hide behind aesthetic tropes.
Warren Maroon | Investec Emerging Artist Award 2026
We’re pleased to share that Warren Maroon was named the recipient of the 2026 Investec Emerging Artist Award for Rising Sun (2025), a large-scale wall work constructed from matchsticks, balsa wood, and glass. Selected from 31 submissions by a jury that included Cumesh Moodliar of Investec South Africa, the award recognises early-career South African artists without prior solo museum or international exhibitions, and supports greater visibility among collectors and curators.
Raised in Mitchell’s Plain and now based in Cape Town, Maroon graduated from the Ruth Prowse School of Art in 2011 and established his voice as a conceptual sculptor in 2018. His practice transforms found objects into works that articulate lived experience, engaging themes of inequality, marginalisation, and resistance through material and form.
Warren Maroon’s upcoming solo exhibition, “The Handshake’s Not Worth the Grip” , will be on view at Everard Read Cape Town from 11 March – 11 April.
Artwork Images, credit: Michael Hall
#EverardRead #EverardReadCapeTown #EverardReadGallery #CapeTownArtFair #ArtExhibition #SouthAfricanArt #Sculptures #Art #AfricanArt #Artwork
The @investeccapetownartfair has long been a meeting point for collectors, curators, and creatives, but its 13th edition in 2026 proved to be more than just an exhibition. With over 34,000 visitors, 126 exhibitors from 34 cities, and more than 490 artists showcased, the fair broke attendance records and cemented its reputation as Africa’s leading contemporary art event.
At the heart of this cultural milestone were five prizes, each offering recognition, visibility, and international opportunities that can reshape an artist’s practice overnight.
Here’s a closer look at the winners whose triumphs are redefining the future of African creativity.
🔗SACreatives.co.za
CREDITS:
Cover Photo: @gabriellekruger & @capeballetafrica
Rising Sun
Matchsticks, shards of glass and Balsa wood
2025
The matchsticks get sanded down, there’s too much glue, the beer gets warm while making because it’s a labour of intention and focus with no clue of how it’s all going to come together. The beer bottles break, the glass cuts but the rising sun must get built. Making on my kitchen table for a month and a half, Nadine wants people over, to feed them, the rising sun must move and breaks constantly (many dinners) but the rising sun must get built.
Exhibited this weekend with @everard_read_cape_town_ at the @investeccapetownartfair
We caught up with @emmajvandermerwe , Head Curator at @everard_read_cape_town_ , on what’s really moving the art at the @investeccapetownartfair .
The 13th edition is bigger than ever with international galleries flying in. African artists are pushing innovation and it’s being seen.
And a major moment: @warrenmaroon winning the Investec Emerging Artist Award for his piece Rising Sun, built from matchsticks and broken glass. True African Artistry
#KlosetKlubZA #InvestecCapeTownArtFair #AfricanArt #ArtAndFashion
Warren Maroon was awarded the Investec Emerging Artist Award 2026, which recognises exceptional South African artists who have not yet exhibited a solo in a museum or on an international platform.
Read more on our website (Link in Bio).
Warren Maroon shares his thoughts behind the artwork:
Cut from the same cloth offers the viewer two realities; the first, “WHITE MONEY BLACK POWER”, is a relatable, familiar phrase reflecting how global power structures currently operate, and for me also connects with themes of identity, memory and fortitude among lived experiences of African artists. The viewer easily places themselves at either end of this statement.
The inverse print offers a new reality and creates a sense of dissonance. “BLACK MONEY WHITE POWER” begs the questions: What is black money? What does black money look like? And in this context, what exactly is white power? Is it still an authoritarian sense of power? The viewer is caught between the two prints and the dissonance created, struggling to find moral equilibrium.
Lace as a material further complicates the reading; once associated with nobility and royalty, it determined class but was later devalued through industrial reproduction, which stripped it of its value, making it a common and affordable household material. Lace became thus a way for working-class households to beautify their spaces, and in this context then acts as the perfect bridge between the economic divide.
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Developed and printed by hand @blackriverstudio
#warrenmaroon #artonpaper #screenprinting
#50ty50typrints
This text-based screenprint was produced in collaboration with @50ty50typrints and extends my ongoing exploration of lace as both material and metaphor. Lace operates here as a structure of inheritance and historically tied to domestic labour and exclusion.
The phrase WHITE MONEY BLACK POWER is physically cut from a single sheet of lace. The removed elements are then reinserted into the negative space, producing the inverted statement BLACK MONEY WHITE POWER.
The work is generated through one continuous action the two phrases then are materially and conceptually inseparable.
The piece was informed by A Protea Is Not a Flower, an exhibition by @studio.leratoshadi and @robinrhodeofficial which engages the lives and work of Gerard Sekoto, Bessie Head, and Don Mattera. Their practices articulate power formed under conditions of exile and systemic limitation where expression functions as both survival and resistance.
Rather than proposing a fixed reading the work holds the viewer within a tension between accumulation and authority, capital and conviction.
The inversion does not correct the original phrase, it complicates it. It asks whether power can exist independently of wealth and whether
wealth, in turn, ever produces power without violence.
Warren Maroon's work strikes an enviable balance between relatability and unease. Familiar materials and objects invite the viewer closer, but tension quickly becomes apparent as one considers the intricacies and dualities of the structures at play – in the immediate, intimate, charged viewing space, as well as in the wider vicinities beyond gallery walls.
These dissonances are beautifully encapsulated in Maroon’s recent collaboration with us, titled Cut from the same cloth. While the artwork explores his themes around inequality and the tensions between delicacy and turbulence, beauty and struggle, the screen print also echoes the mediums of his wider practice: For example, the background was created with actual lace, spray-painted so that it stiffened and became sculptural in nature, then used as a stencil for exposure directly onto the screen.
The result is a striking diptych, and this original screen print is limited to just 15 prints.
#screenprinting #warrenmaroon #50ty50typrints
