Sandile Radebe

Sandile’s work examines isiZulu material culture as a tool used to relate to the physical and spiritual world. As such, these materials become a medium to transmit isiZulu ontology, epistemology, traditions and proof of events. He focuses on isiZulu petroglyphs known as amabheqe to distil the logic of how these symbols convey and generate a way of relaying information to individuals, the community and the spiritual world — reporting incidents to the ancestors, pleading for their protection, acknowledging important developments in this world, and more.

Based in Johannesburg, Sandile completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) degree at Wits School of the Arts and studied for a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts and Cultural Management at the same institution. His solo exhibition, ‘A Walk in the City,’ was held in 2014 at the National School of the Arts. He has participated in various group exhibitions and art fairs, with the most recent being Spier Light Art Festival (2022), the Cape Town International Art Fair (2022) and Poetic Land Art Exhibition (2021). Sandile has been involved in several public interventions: Afrika Burn (2014, 2015 and 2017), Century City Bus Station (2015), 1st International Sculpture Symposium, Bhubaneswar, India (2018), and has executed several public art commissions since 2003. In 2019, he formed part of a team involved with painting the largest mural in South Africa, on Louis Botha Road in Johannesburg for the Johannesburg Road Agency facilitated by the Trinity Session. He recently completed a life-size bronze sculpture commission for the offices of the Road Management Agency in Johannesburg.