Vanessa Tembane

Vanessa Tembane
Vanessa Tembane is a South African born artist, with Mozambican heritage, she is currently based in Johannesburg. Tembane holds a master’s degree in Fine arts. Tembane works primarily in collage and digital print media. Her work is inspired by her mother’s narratives and explores how they have influenced her identity and sense of belonging. Her collages allow her to merge her photographs that were taken in South Africa with those of her Mozambican relatives and to create strange hybridized composites. The collages combine photographic cut-outs with details of swathes of fabric – capulanas – that were given to Tembane by her grandmother and aunts during occasional visits to Mozambique. Tembane’s collages become a means of telling stories about her origins and what is in some sense an alternative “home” culture, albeit one she mostly experienced indirectly. They enable her to identify with her mother’s country of origin by constructing new imagined memories for herself, and through this, to achieve a sense of belonging. Exhibitions Ampersand Foundation 21 year celebration | UJ Gallery | 2019 In this, I found Myself | No End Contemporary | 2019 Bagfactory Winter Salon | 2019 Jan Ceiliers Collection Exhibition | 2018 Turbine Art Fair | 2018 Shared Histories Project | Apartheid Museum | 2017 4th year group exhibition | FADA gallery | 2017 Jozi Land Art Exhibition | 2016 Joburg Fringe | 2016 3rd year group exhibition | Art It Is | 2016 Awards Artbank collection | 2018 Ampersand Fellow | 2018 Mentee at the RMB Emerging Artists | 2018 Sasol New signatures awards finalist | 2017 Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards finalist | 2017

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