The Bloemfontein sculptor, Miné Kleynhans, has won the 2024 SASOL New Signatures Art Competition for her installation piece titled ‘Meditations on Resentment’. Each year, artists from across the country submit their works to this iconic competition: this year, an unprecedented 1013 submissions were received from creative makers across South Africa, with 137 notable works making it to the final exhibition.
Kleynhans, aged 34, is a project manager at the University of the Free State Art Gallery, whose winning work, ‘Meditations on Resentment’ imagines an intimate, personal ritual which sanctions the experience – and the expression – of the feeling of resentment.
This interactive work invites viewers to engage in a ritual with this secret, and often suppressed, emotion. To do this: viewers imaginatively and temporarily lift the constraints placed on how we interact with resentment through participation.
When encountering the artwork, participants are presented with the shiny, indented surface of the work, a brush with a sharpened end, and a bowl of sand. The ritual asks people to kneel in front of the work, and pour sand into the indented surface.
After doing this, viewers write their resentments in the sand with the sharpened end of the brush, before sweeping the sand away and our of the closest cavity. They do so until the sharp, hard, kernel of a brass thorn is revealed.
It’s a meditative and collaborative piece which asks viewers to face an emotion often considered taboo and is over-managed within day-to-day life and interactions. Miné Kleynhans’ work asks viewers to face this difficult emotion, and engage with it directly.
When asked why she created her work, the winning artist shared: “I am interested in articulating suppressed, unnoticed or hidden things that shape (or are shaped by) people’s habitual thinking and emotional patterns… I was party to situations and discussions in which ‘resentment’ carried a special emphasis. It is an emotional state that is hard to admit to, and difficult to share openly. It has an underhanded–semi-conscious quality and yet it is such a strong current in peoples’ lives. ‘Sanctioning’ the expression of resentment felt like a dangerous thing to do, but it is also something that has a strangle hold on your emotional lives and should bespoken about.”
For her winning work, Kleynhans takes home a cash prize of R100 000, and an opportunity to hold a solo exhibition at the prestigious Pretoria Art Museum in 2025.
2024 SASOL New Signatures Runner-Up: Tandabantu Nathaniel Jongikhaya Matola
Tandabantu Nathaniel Jongikhaya Matola, a 28 year old Fine Arts student at Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape, was crowned runner-up and awarded R25 000 for his work titled ‘Ukuncikelela’, which means ‘to hold on’ or ‘to endure’. Black South African communities, especially in impoverished rural villages, are often forced to keep domestic items longer than they wish. The idea for this artwork came when the artist noticed that the dishcloth at his home was in a bad state.
As an artist, this prompted Matola to collect dishcloths from his village in exchange for new ones. Clay and underglaze are used to depict the homes Matola visited, which were then combined with the dishcloths he obtained from each home. The weaving of clay and cloth symbolises ukuncikelela, the isiXhosa term for this act of holding on. PVA glue is used to hold the cloths in shape while also reinforcing the ukungcola (dirtiness) from the overuse of the cloth.
Other Merit Award Winners
Five other artists received R10 000 each for their artworks, listed below.
The New Signatures competition has been sponsored by SASOL for 34 years, and it originally was established by the Association of Arts Pretoria in the late 1960’s. It’s a familiar and well-recognised facet of the South African art community, and an important vehicle for celebrating the talent held by this country’s artists.
“Over the years, the Sasol New Signatures Art Competition has become a rich tapestry of our collective history, stories, and voices. Once again, this exhibition presents a wide spectrum of narratives that provoke a myriad of thoughts and reactions. Yet, all these works originate from a shared creative spirit that reflects our identity as a nation and as individuals. We are grateful to all the artists who entrusted us with their stories and support the competition with unyielding enthusiasm,” said Elton Fortuin (Sasol Vice President: Group Communications and Brand Management).
The 2024 winners and finalists have their works on show at the Pretoria Art Museum until Sunday, 3 November 2024. The exhibition can also be viewed virtually on the website.
See more art events and experiences in Cape Town here
