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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