Dopamine

by

Buhle Nkalashe

6  - 28 May 2021

Buhle Nkalashe is a Cape Town-based artist interested in his African cultural heritage, the visual elements associated with it and how it is evolving in response to a developing and changing world. The healing and change of the colonised African mindset is what drives Nkalashe to paint and be inspired by the youth of today.

DOPAMINE is a series of six paintings that portrays people with their cell phones. “It has become the most valuable objects in our lives. These devices save time and has made it easier for us to communicate and find opportunities to move forward and has an incredible reach. If you don't have it you fall behind. Also, it has become so much more than tools of communication and entertainment – they have become places where we seek validation.”

DOPAMINE forms part of WORLDART’s Art Bytes series of exhibitions and will be on view at the gallery (54 Church Street, Cape Town cbd) and online at https://www.worldart.co.za/dopamine till 28 May 2021.                                             

Buhle Nkalashe (b. 1994) is a full-time visual artist based in Cape Town, South Africa.

He is interested in his African cultural heritage, the visual elements associated with it and how it is evolving in response to a developing and changing world.

Nkalashe works with paint and mixed media - a combination of charcoal, acrylic paint, oil paint and oil pastels. His paintings generally reflect on the influence of culture on society and he enjoys exploring traditional patterns and its contribution to more contemporary versions of cultural expression.

He has had solo exhibitions in Johannesburg and Cape Town and was shortlisted for the Sanlam Portrait awards in 2017. In 2020 Saatchi Art nominated 35 “rising stars” - talented emerging artists under the age of 35 - to collect and Nkalashe was the only South African artist on this list.

More information:    Charl Bezuidenhout  |  charl@worldart.co.za   |   +27 21 423 3075