Terence Maluleke: Capturing the Multiplicity of Black Urban Life through Digital Art and Painting

Terence Maluleke is a digital artist and painter based in Johannesburg. Born in 1995 in Soweto, Maluleke’s work draws inspiration from the township community he grew up in. Working in a predominantly figurative mode, he creates stylised portraits and still-lifes that explore contemporary Black urban experience. Foregoing the specificity of individualistic portraiture, he embraces the multiplicity of pan-African Black identities in his art.

 

 

Maluleke is an accomplished visual developer who has worked with Walt Disney Animation Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, Netflix and Triggerfish. In 2022, the artist co-founded Kasi Sketchbook, a non-profit project that offers drawing clubs to children and young adults in Johannesburg’s townships.

 

Maluleke works from his studio in August House in Johannesburg’s inner city, home to a multitude of creative workspaces belonging to the city’s Black vanguard. He has exhibited at Latitudes Art Fair in Johannesburg and in group shows at Kalashnikovv Gallery and Bkhz. His first solo presentation at Southern Guild, Grace in Grand Bassam (2023), was inspired by an artist residency at La Fourchette de Rōze in Côte d’Ivoire.

 

Biography supplied by Southern Guild.