Cape Town based artist Gavin Rain has been invited to exhibit at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The  biennale, considered by many to be the most important event on the international art calendar, takes place biannually in Venice, Italy and will run from June 4th – November 27th, 2011.

For each biennale, a guest curator is appointed by its board who then curate a themed exhibition with 20 or so of the world’s absolute top artists.
Concurrently with this, countries from the rest of the world are invited to participate by each presenting an exhibition curated independently by a curator from that country. This will be the first time that South Africa features a national participation.  The exhibition is curated by Thembinkosi Goniwe and will feature works by Mary Sibande, Siemon Allen, and Lyndi Sales.

Gavin Rain’s inclusion came after one of the participating curators, Fabio Anselmi, saw Rain’s work at an art fair in Italy. He was so impressed by it that he requested to show his work at the Costa Rica exhibition for the duration of the biennale. The Costa Rica exhibition will feature works by eleven international artists rather than artists from their country only.

Gavin Rain lives and works in Cape Town. He is known for his layered paintings of cityscapes and pixelated paintings of portraits.  He has had solo exhibitions with the Worldart gallery in Cape Town and Johannesburg.