Vanessa Tembane (b. 1995) is a South African-born artist with a Mozambican heritage. She received her Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of Johannesburg in 2019. As a process-driven artist who predominantly integrates collage with printmaking techniques, and crochet, her work addresses her sense of loss of her Mozambique family as a result of her mother’s migration to South Africa. This feeling of loss is exacerbated by the differences in culture, language, and distance between herself and her Mozambican family. The collages tell stories about her origins and what has become an alternative “home” culture – albeit one the she has experienced indirectly. They enable Tembane to share her mother’s sense of loss of her birthplace and markers of her identity while grappling with her parallel sense of displacement. Imagining new memories for herself, her collages help her identify with what could have been. By such means Tembane reintroduces herself to a childhood she was severed from, broaching a sense of belonging and grappling with the question, ‘who am I if I cannot prove who I was?’
During the course of her career Tembane was a recipient of the Ampersand Fellowship, following which she completed a month-long residency in New York city, USA. Having participated in multiple group exhibitions, she held a solo presentation of her work at the FNB Art Joburg fair in 2020, in collaboration with INCCA (Independent Network for Contemporary Culture & Art). Tembane was an Absa L’atelier Gerard Sekoto award finalist 2024.
Selected Exhibitions
What is home to you? | Lizamore & Associates | Johanessburg | 2024
Toyota Woordfees Bubble Exhibition & Auction | Lizamore & Associates, Straus & Co | Stellenbosch | 2023
76/23 Print Exhibition presented by The Arts Company Soweto| Constitution Hill | Johannesburg | 2023
What We Know Now | INNCA | Johannesburg | 2023
Shadow Kin | Constitution Hill | Johannesburg | 2022
First Rand Salon Collectables Exhibition | Lizamore & Associates | Johannesburg | 2022
Location | AVA Gallery | Cape Town | 2022
I Surrender to Creation | Riboville Boutique Hotel | Johannesburg | 2021
Past Present Currents by Re-Curators | AVA Gallery | Cape Town | 2021
Cloud-cuckoo-land | Candice Berman Contemporary| Johannesburg | 2020
An Unfurling | Young Artist’s Project | KZNSA Gallery | Durban | 2020
Ampersand Foundation 21-year celebration | UJ Gallery | Johannesburg | 2019
In this, I found Myself | No End Contemporary | Johannesburg | 2019
Bag Factory Winter Salon | Johannesburg | 2019
Jan Ceiliers Collection Exhibition | Johannesburg | 2018
Selected Fairs
She Knows Herself | Turbine Art Fair | Johannesburg | 2023
Young Spirits by Lizamore & Associates | Turbine Art Fair | Johannesburg | 2022
Fabricate | Klein Karoo Arts Festival | Cape Town| 2022
RMB Talent Unlocked Alumni Project | Turbine Art Fair| Johannesburg | 2020
Awards, Achievements, and Collections
Gerad Sekoto Award Finalist | Absa L’atelier Award | 2024
Existing in the Shadow | Solo Exhibition at FNB Art Joburg | 2020
Rand Merchant Bank collection | 2020
Artbank Collection | 2024
State of the Art Award Finalist | 2019
Ampersand Fellow | 2018
Mentee at the RMB Emerging Artists | 2018
Sasol New Signatures Awards finalist | 2017
Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards finalist | 2017
Selected Press
UNC College of Arts and Sciences | African Studies Center | 2020