‘IT WAS a case of, “sisters are doing it for themselves” – a lyrical line from an Aretha Franklin sing along – when the eclectic artistic works of female artists from South Africa, Southern Africa and Europe were showcased during the 2025 edition of the popular RMB Latitudes Art Fair, at the spectacular Shepstone Gardens in Mountain View, Johannesburg during the past weekend.
Apart from familiar practitioners such as South Africa’s Mary Sibande – who showcased a solo presentation in which her sculpture was reconfigured as a luminous three-dimensional projection – a group of independent artists assembled under the curatorship of celebrated artist Bonolo Kavula, as well as Zimbabwean artist Xanthe Somers and Dutch artist Thirza Schaap, featured prominently at this latest display of international creativity.
In continuing to deepen the Fair’s commitment to fostering meaningful engagement on the continent, the 2025 edition hosted a Botswana exposé as part of the International Galleries Platform which offers accessible means for galleries and artists on the continent and in the diaspora to exhibit in South Africa.
Taken as a whole, the range of critical, archival and artistic voices emerging out of Botswana’s contemporary art scene share an ethos of premeditated divergence – resulting in the country’s art industry to currently undergo a period of metamorphosis. Thus, the Botswana Focus curated by Latitudes curator, Boitumelo Makousu, aimed to facilitate and catalyse this critical shift, operating as a platform for the growing interest in contemporary art from the region.
Overviewed Makousu, “Curatorially, the Botswana Focus grapples with the historical and ideological narratives of borders – those internal to the region as well as the geographical markers that distinguish Botswana in relation to South Africa and the broader world,” – whilst fair sponsor, Rand Merchant Bank’s Executive of Head Marketing and Communications: Africa and International, Linda Kachingwe-Sisya, opined: “By shining a light on Botswana’s creative voices, we hope to contribute to helping talent gain broader visibility and create lasting connections across the continent.”
The Botswana Focus space – which through a collaborative structure of engagement aimed to scope the depth and nuances of Botswana’s largely unknown arts landscape – at the fair comprised of collectives such as the TBP Artist Collective, The Space Botswana, ReCurate, Banana Club and the Art Residency Centre Botswana (ARC). Furthermore, it featured curators, cultural practitioners and participating artists such as Ora Loapi and Katlego CL Twala. A Gaborone-based contemporary painter who participated under the auspices of Banana Club – an artist-led collective whose visual production and expression prioritises the formation of safe and engaging community dialogue – Twala showcased a body of work exploring themes of the ephemeral and fleeting expressed through oil portraitures which speak to the fragility of personal history, and the way memory distorts, fades, and yet remains deeply present.
An installation of hers which caught attendees’ attention was a 2025 oil painting titled, Mama – a tribute to her mother Genevieve’s devoted support of her artistic endeavours. Cutting a debonair figure in a white hat, the proud mom looked on whilst visitors complemented her young good-looking and elegantly dressed daughter on her visual presentation. Working primarily with oil paint on linen and cotton, Twala is best known for vibrant figurative portraits and figures that evoke the techniques and aesthetics of old masters while integrating a contemporary and universal visual language.
A graduate of the Swedish Academy of Realist Art and the Barcelona Academy of Art, her art delves into the intersectional exploration of masculinity through feminist theory – drawing heavily on psychology and philosophy.
Twala’s subject matter often reflects complex relationships, particularly between the boy child and the mother. This unique perspective is characterized by the painter’s ability to merge classical realism with modern socio-cultural commentary. Notable series include striking portraits that engage viewers with their emotive intensity and intellectual depth.
Her works have been exhibited in prestigious venues in Cape Town and Sweden. Additionally, her paintings are part of notable collections, including those of a former Museum Director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in Cape Town. In 2024, Twala received the New Emergence 2024 Art Prize – cementing her reputation as a rising talent in contemporary art.
Another fellow creative and Southern African neighbour of Twala also participating at the fair was the Vaal-based South African, Dimpho Lehoko.
A fine arts postgraduate student at the Vaal University of Technology, her work unpacks the experience of growing up with a parent navigating mental health challenges – as expressed with her doll creations composed of seshweshwe fabrics.
Invited by the BNAP Foundation (an NPO which addresses the needs of emerging artists to be able to sustain themselves in the art industry through residences) to participate in its Strange Fruit Exhibition – Lehoko discovered that its theme of challenging the normalization of violence against women and children within the South African context, directly aligned with her own work which addresses the quieter forms of harm caused by verbal abuse, emotional neglect and inherited silence.
Lehoko’s outdoor presentation located amidst the venue’s magnificent ridge side setting titled, Mogosha, and made from seshweshwe fabric, wood, tulle fabric and komforel unicurl, is inspired by an incident in which her grandmother reprimanded her then 14-year-old self for daring to step out of her home environment whilst skimpily dressed – a moment she recalls as marking a transition from the carefreeness of childhood to the constrained period of adulthood. Expounding on the interpretation of the artwork, the artist opines that her artwork reflects on how the constraints imposed by her granny were rooted in her consciousness regarding societal issues.
Further on, she mentioned her creating of dolls as representations of emotions and moments she couldn’t describe in words, as well as figures purveying huge tales – with one of the effective and resonant forms through which she expresses those as being through the playful game of Mantlwane (playing house). Her choice of art material has been adopted from her own seamstress mother’s use of seshweshwe in the Sesotho dressmaking occupation she specializes in.
Reminiscing, she added: “for years the scent of the fabric filled our home.”
Top image Jacob MAWELA (Katlego CL Twala, a Botswana artist, limned posing for a snap with her mom Genevieve in front of her 2025 oil painting titled, Mama, at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair at Shepstone Gardens, in Mountain View).
