Art in South Africa

The art in South Africa is omnipresent all over the country.

There are plenty of art galleries in Cape Town that one may explore by following an art walk called First Thursdays because it simply happens first Thursday evening of every month, in Cape Town. Art lovers can enter with no entrance charge, around 15 art galleries which stay open until 9pm and which are all between Wale and Strand streets.

During the visit of these galleries, you will quickly notice that South African art is extremely diversified, certainly mostly due to the melting pot of cultures and influences of foreign artists who now live in Cape Town.

The South African are extremely creative and they use various materials to express their creativity. It becomes sometimes difficult to differentiate art and handicraft in South Africa as they are, most of the time, part of the same piece.

The San and the Bantu people which are the Xhosa, Zoulous, Tswana, Sotho, Ndebele, Venda and Swazi, were the first artists in South Africa. They have actually influenced art all around South Africa.

The San people have left amazing drawings of animals and African people, in many caves in the country.

Nowadays, these drawings have been used to decorate various supports.

Ostrich eggs were also used a lot by the San to draw powerful paintings and create beautiful jewelleries with the shelves such as bracelet, necklace...

The Bantu creativity has been expressed through more practical objects such as bowl, spoons, baskets...They used beads and clay for their art.

Nowadays, many objects made of beads are sold in art galleries, shops and markets.

American are big fans of South African art and you can very often see nice pieces in New York and Los Angeles galleries and other trendy places.

African paintings , jewelry and pottery stay amongst the favourite pieces of art that most people like to buy.

Art in South Africa is also associated to fund raising and it is also a great way to support local artists and communities. Organisations such as Art Source South Africa handles an array of activities within the sector from fundraising and strategy development to curation, project development and management.

It services a range of clients and interfaces between the worlds of cultural development at community and individual levels, corporate sponsors and sources of public donor funding.

From Art in South Africa to Voila Cape Town