Investec Cape Town Art Fair is Africa's largest art fair. With over 120 exhibitors, 30 000 visitors, and 10 000 VIPs, it offers a platform for galleries, collectors, curators and artists from around the globe to create connections at the forefront of contemporary art. With an intimate experience of one of the world's most unique art capitals, Investec Cape Town Art Fair has proven to be the place where the fast-growing African art market and the international art world meet. Investec Cape Town Art Fair is proud to host its 12th edition from 21-23 February 2025.

The resilience of painting as medium is situated at the divergence between function and value. In a historic triumph, for generation after generation, painting is steadfast in its position as a beloved form of creative output. Where techniques may vary, each brush stroke - in this exhibition, and beyond - is a triumph of creativity, unshackled to utility. In a painting, generation after generation, there is something else to continuously return to. Something that transfixes the gaze, softens it, and makes room for feeling something else. It does not beg to be reinvented, but simply for the viewers to return, generation after generation, to find in the details something else.

Kalashnikovv Gallery is pleased to announce their participation in the 2024 FNB Art Joburg.

FNB Art Joburg is a South African Art fair that presents a space for the showcasing of established and new talent in an environment that is immersive, accessible and inclusive.


Tickets are available to purchase using the link below.

For more information and to be added to the catalogue waiting list, please email the gallery at info@kalashnikovv.com

Located at 61 Loop Street in the heart of the CBD, Kalashnikovv Gallery’s new outpost signifies more than just a physical space; it symbolises a commitment to fostering collaboration, instigation, and integration within the local art community. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition is a testament to this ethos, showcasing works that reflect the contemporary moment – a world in flux, where artists serve as storytellers, illuminating the complexities of our shared human experience.

With an eclectic lineup of artists including Black Koki, Conrad Botes, Senzeni Marasela, and Roger Ballen, among others, Kalashnikovv Gallery’s debut exhibition promises to captivate and challenge audiences alike. As the gallery sets its sights on a new chapter in Cape Town, it invites art enthusiasts to join them on this journey of exploration and discovery.
Kalashnikovv Gallery’s Loop Street location marks not just the beginning of a new venture, but a continuation of its longstanding commitment to pushing artistic boundaries and amplifying diverse voices.
In a world grappling with uncertainty, art remains a beacon of hope and a catalyst for change – a sentiment echoed in the vibrant tapestry of works on display at Kalashnikovv’s newest home.
For those eager to experience the cutting-edge of contemporary art, “Refuse the Given World” beckons, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in a world where imagination knows no bounds and creativity reigns supreme. 

Vusi Beauchamp, one of South Africa’s most critically acclaimed artists, is suffering severe heart failure. To save his life, he needs urgent heart surgery.⁠
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Kalashnikovv Gallery is hosting an exhibition in conjunction with Aspire Art to raise funds to cover the expenses of the operation. A selection of Beauchamp’s works, along with donated works by artists in the community, will be auctioned online from Thursday 4 April - 16 April 2024.⁠
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EXHIBITION DETAILS⁠
Saturday 6 April 2024 (The exhibition will be open from Thursday 4 April - 6 April)⁠
11am - 3pm⁠
Aspire Art Gallery 32 Bolton Road, Parkwood, Johannesburg⁠
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ONLINE AUCTION⁠
Visit: Aspireart.net⁠
Thursday 4 April - Tuesday 16 April 2024⁠

Kalashnikovv Gallery presents a group exhibition for April 2024 of four artists, Zanele Montle, Ronél de Jager, Kay-Leigh Fischer, and Maja Malević; a group of artists that blend figuration and abstraction, the real and the surreal. Their work all possesses a process of manipulating reality, deletion, blurred visions, dream-like states, with distinct mark making processes in each practice.

There’s a distinct physicality in the works of these four artists, working on canvas at scale is a bodily act where there is focus on the whole and on minute details of each work. All four artists break from the traditional bounds of classical figuration and abstraction in their work, creating conversations between their visions in the curated group exhibition Inter Opsia.

Investec Cape Town Art Fair brings the international art world together in Africa. It features over 100 leading galleries and more than 500 artists from four continents. Many high-quality exhibitions take place concurrently in and around Cape Town, creating a region-wide art week.

Kalashnikovv Gallery is pleased to announce their participation in the 2023 FNB Art Joburg.

FNB Art Joburg is a South African Art fair that presents a space for the showcasing of established and new talent in an environment that is immersive, accessible and inclusive.


Tickets are available to purchase using the link below.

For more information and to be added to the catalogue waiting list, please email the gallery at info@kalashnikovv.com

Cavalli Gallery present "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden", an immersive exhibition that invites artists to explore the intricate relationship between humanity and the natural world. With the start of spring around the corner, participating artists were invited to embark on a journey to challenge conventional notions of beauty and confront the complexities hidden beneath the surface of a seemingly perfect rose garden.

The exhibition at Cavalli will feature painting, sculpture, ceramics & hand-crafted works by just over 25 artists.

Curated by Amy Lyn Eveleigh

From 26 - 28 May 2023, RMB Latitudes will bring together artists and exhibitors from across the continent to transform Shepstone Gardens, a magnificent three-acre property, into a curated celebration of art from Africa.

Visitors will be able to enjoy a curated contemporary art experience, while strolling through an iconic Johannesburg garden and attending art talks and walkabouts. What’s more, a partnership with Franschhoek Wine Valley, will see vignerons from the winelands fly to RMB Latitudes to share their top wines and bubblies with visitors. All of this will be complemented by a seasonal, fresh food offering by sustainable chef, James Diack.

“New platforms such as RMB Latitudes are vitally important,” says Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of African Artists' Foundation (AAF), and curatorial advisor on RMB Latitudes 2023 International Galleries Programme. “They offer innovative models for cultural and artistic engagement that have evolved from the decay of our previous ways of living, and are developing new models for today.”

Celebrate in our shared creative spirit, ignite new relationships, and connect with artists and galleries in an inspiring setting.

Future Classics X Kalashnikovv Gallery invite you to join us for drinks to preview a specially curated exhibition and collaboration as part of the Joburg Decor and Design Week. Featuring artists include: Turiya Magadlela, Jake Micheal Singer, Maja Maljavic, Ronel de Jager, Maaika Bakker, Craig Smith, Theresa-Anne Mackintosh, Richard Hart and Ntsako Nkuna.

The exhibition focuses on celebrating the work of dynamic visiting artists who have joined the Bag Factory family within the past five years through our Awards and Residencies. The title of this exhibition speaks to the idea of reflecting whilst simultaneously appreciating where the artists are currently and looking forward as a community.

Even as these artists have made strides in their professional careers since being at Bag Factory, this return to the yellow roller doors fortifies that we are always with them on their journeys.

In representations of identity, we must consider past and prior representations of the self in order to depart from or move closer towards them. This point of departure is one marked by convergence, as Donna Haraway attests, ‘Irony.. [is] about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true.’ Loud and Clear serves as an investigation into the politics of identity and the questionable sphere of our ever changing world. It explores the liminal space of our state of being in relation to the transformations we go through over time.

In the art canon of the past, paintings did not look back. They were made for the viewer and did not confront us. They did not ask anything other than to be seen. Today, artists have breached that boundary. Paintings now are both the window pane, and the landscape beyond. Today, paintings are made for the artist – but what we see is not always what we get, because paintings now do not ask for appraisal – instead they confront us in the discomfort of their independence.

Latitudes Online and ANNA Pure Organic present a group show featuring 60 women artists.

Reshape 22 is an annual, online survey exhibition that seeks to augment the visibility of contemporary women-identifying artists in Africa. The group show, which features works by 60 artists, aims to highlight powerful women-identifying voices on the continent and empower a collective whose narrative has been underplayed and neglected throughout history, all while still taking intersectional theory into consideration.

Reshape 22 envisions a more comprehensive and inclusive art canon for future generations. The exhibition aims to highlight a contemporary view of female-identifying practices that is not based on any single narrative of womanhood, but rather explores the vital contributions of women making art, in relation to the compelling issues that define our times.

Kalashnikovv Gallery is pleased to announce their participation in the 2022 FNB Art Joburg.

FNB Art Joburg is a South African Art fair that presents a space for the showcasing of established and new talent in an environment that is immersive, accessible and inclusive.

Located at stand 13 in the main section HUB, Kalashnikovv’s full presentation will include work by artists: Tinyiko Makwakwa, Lucy Jane Turpin, Ayanda Mabulu, Turiya Magadlela, Yolanda Mazwana, Theresa Anne Mackintosh, Isaac Zavale and Lazi Mathebula. With a special focus on the work of Ronél de Jager.

Tickets are available to purchase using the link below.

For more information and to be added to the catalogue waiting list, please email the gallery at info@kalashnikovv.com

Ronél De Jager’s solo show at Kalashnikovv spans two seemingly irreconcilable domains – abstraction and decoration – in so far as her paintings are pointedly concerned with the bouquet, or floral arrangement, and, as such, informed and honed through domestic design. And yet, her paintings are also abstractions, in so far as they evoke the limits of the seen, or representational. Her paintings mimic the Real yet challenge such a categorisation. This qualification – as much a riposte as it is a fluctuation – is dramatised in the way that De Jager paints. Her resistance to tangible fixities, the opacity which clouds her painterly patina, the fact that what we see is intrinsically blurred, signals a critical departure from the convention of Still Life painting, to which she alludes, yet which she betrays. This is because he canvases as not memento mori or deathly records of the symbolism of things, but dispersed filligreed lingerings of patterns, of forms, whose greater kinship lies with the inscrutability of sight, what we think we see.

De Jager’s blurred filligreed canvases evoke the ornamental, then erase it. Why? What is gained from this deliberate distortion of things? To my mind, it suggests an artwork that is more impressionistic than realistic, the art of someone drawn to miasmas – visualised worlds that quake and tremble in the face of certainty.

What does it mean that we see what we see?

Known for painting, sculpture, and installation, recently Ronél de Jager has been translating digital photographs into ambiguous markings to investigate the integrity of messaging while occupying an increasingly liminal (half physical, half digital) reality.

Objet trouve usually sees artists retrieving things from our everyday to charge them with artistic gravitas. Using found digital objects (like jpegs without copyright redtape), de Jager stretches the movement’s capacity to consider virtual realms. Through deliberate pixilation, she strips works of the detail that sets them apart. Then, only after being thrown into obscurity does de Jager use said images as references for her oil paintings.

Ronél de Jager’s chat with habitat kicks off cross-legged on her living room couch, the artist’s three-year-old daughter Nova has just had a bath and is curled up on her mother’s lap and about to go to bed. Two minutes later: Great, Nova found the puzzles in the corner cupboard.

(10 more minutes later) She’s taking a ride on their dog, Julu. Her husband is building the Lego they gave him for Father’s day and the sounds of Lego-piece-digging in a container is heard over the kazoos buzzing in the background as a layered soundtrack to muffled chattering playing off the iPad.

Ronél swears it’s a 5-minute call to bedtime...

Skilderye van ’n oordaad Blomme was in die sogenaamde Nederlandse Gone Een van die 17de eeu goedkoper as the ware Jakob – snyblomme. Boonop kon die kopers van so ’n stillere hulle jaarin en jaaruit verlustig aan ’n rojale boeket, en die nie net ten opsigte van kleur en vorm die; Botaniese aspirasies kon op dié manier ook bevredig word.

Maar meer as bloot dekoratief, met inbegrepe die spel van lig en vorm en tekstuur en wat niet al die, en daarmee saam die beliggaming van die glorie wat gekom het deur die handelsdryfvermoë van die Nederlanders, wat die gedagte van vanitas – soos verwoord in Predikers “alles kom tot niks…tot niks” – onderliggend aan dié boomstudies

Afgesien van die sukses van handelsvlote is die Goue Eeu ook deur ondersekerheid, bittere stryd en verdeling gekenmerkt. En dank het dié genré van stillewe-skilder iets van inkyk, van nadink en besin oor die vervlietendheid van die lewe beliggaam.

Dripping, dazzling colours envelope Ronél de Jager's latest body of work in her solo exhibition 'Still Here' at Kalashnikovv Gallery, which is shaped by paintings, prints and a beaded work made in collaboration with Qaqambile Bead Studio.

De Jager’s work often depicts ambiguous tapestries of flora, falling and slipping in a dark atmospheric expanse. The streaming canvases of paint and glistening compositions of beadwork explore ideas of transience.

Latitudes is your online destination to explore and buy contemporary art from Africa. With a constantly changing, curated selection of art from the continent and the diaspora, the site brings together artworks presented by galleries, curators, studios, not-for-profit organisations and independent artists themselves. The first platform of this kind dedicated to art from Africa, it is designed to help you discover creativity from the continent in a non-intimidating and accessible way.

Kalashnikovv Gallery is pleased to present 'Still Here', a solo exhibition by Ronél de Jager. Please join us for the opening of the exhibition on Saturday, 11th June from 11am to 2pm at 70 Juta Street, Braamfontein.

“She lay every morning under an avalanche of details, blissed pictures of breakfasts in Patagonia, a girl applying her foundation with a hard boiled egg, a shiba inu in Japan leaping from paw to paw to greet it’s owner, ghostly pale woman posting pictures of bruises – the world pressing closer and closer, the spiderweb of human connection grown so thick it was almost a shimmering and solid silk, and the day still not opening to her. What did it mean that she was allowed to see this?” - Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This

'Still Here' showcases Ronél de Jager’s latest body of work - paintings, prints and a beaded work made in collaboration with Qaqambile Bead Studio. De Jager contemplates the disintegrating boundaries between real and not real, and the consequent effects on our personal relationships and our relationships to ourselves. By integrating digital tools into her painting practice and remastering the Vanitas style from the 17th and 18th century Dutch masters, this body of work takes apart the pixelated life with a sensitivity that makes it poetic, even bearable.

Ronél de Jager has joined forces with a uniquely South African fine art beading studio to create a new 100 x 100 cm glass beaded piece titled 'All that Glitters... is Glass'. The project was made possible by Kalashnikovv Gallery.

The Cape Town-based Qaqambile Bead Studio, run by the dynamic trio of Mandisa Masina, Nolubabalo Kanku and Neliswa Sigwela has, since 2004, worked through the Spier Arts Trust on many collaborations with artists. The studio (previously known as Qubeka Bead Studio) specializes in translating complex brushwork into panels composed of thousands of beads. This incredible process relies on a close, synergistic working relationship between artist and master beader.

Qaqambile’s portfolio includes numerous collaborations with renowned fine artists, and its work is held in notable collections, both locally and internationally.

De Jager says of the collaboration: “I’ve had a long-held dream to work with Qaqambile, and it made perfect sense that my latest works, which have a tapestry-like feel, presented me with a great opportunity to do so. The millions of vertical brushstrokes in my oil paintings have an impressionistic aesthetic, which Qaqambile translated beautifully into glass beads. This process of decoding and re-encoding the image also added to the conceptual narrative of the work.”

“The design was exciting and extremely detailed”, says Neliswa Sigwela. “We enjoyed working on it. It was challenging and required lots of concentrating… lots of mixing colours!”

Sigwela, worked with Masina and Clayton Skiet over a period of two months to complete the work. An inaugural showing of the work will be presented by Kalashnikovv Gallery at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, from 18 - 20 February, 2022.

Kalashnikovv Gallery is pleased to announce their participation in the 2022 edition of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair.

After a hiatus brought on by Covid19 and the subsequent lockdowns- Africa’s largest contemporary art fair, Investec Cape Town Art Fair will return to its physical home, the Cape Town International Convention Centre, from Friday, 18th to Sunday 20th February 2022.

For the 9th edition, local and international art lovers will have the opportunity to engage with the art online or in person, with Investec Cape Town Art Fair offering a hybrid of both platforms.

Highlights of their presentation include a special focus on the work of Turiya Magadlela, a new beadwork collaboration between Ronél de Jager and Qaqambile Bead Studio and exhibiting new artists Xhanti Zwelendaba and Tyra Naidoo for the first time. 

Tickets are available to purchase using the link below.

Participating artists in their presentation this year include Ayanda Mabulu, Conrad Botes, Craig Smith, Isaac Zavale, Kylie Wentzel, Lazi Mathebula, Theresa-Anne Mackintosh, Lucy Jane Turpin, Michael Linders, Ronél de Jager, Turiya Magadlela, Tyra Naidoo, Yolanda Mazwana and Xhanti Zwelendaba.

For more information and to be added to the catalogue waiting list, please email the gallery at info@kalashnikovv.com

Kalashnikovv Gallery is pleased to announce their participation in Turbine Art Fair 2021.

Turbine Art Fair (TAF) is a unique South African Art fair that presents a space for the showcasing of established and new talent in an environment that is immersive, accessible and inclusive. This year, the fair will be taking place both online and in-person at 10 Fricker Road, Illovo, Sandton from 30th Sept - 3rd Oct.

Tickets are available for purchase online at https://turbineartfair.co.za/tickets.

Participating artists in their presentation includes: Ayanda Mabulu, Seth Pimentel, Maaike Bakker, Ronél de Jager, Yolanda Mazwana, Louis de Villiers, Richard Hart, Theresa-Anne Mackintosh, Erin Chaplin, Lazi Mathebula, Kylie Wentzel, Isaac Zavale, Boemo Diale, Craig Smith and Navel Seakamela.

For more information, contact the gallery at info@kalashikovv.com

The work ‘Song to Say Goodbye takes its title from the song of the same name by Placebo (Album: Meds, 2006). The painting ‘Song to Say Goodbye’ holds various levels of meaning with various personal narratives which have held significance for the artist in recent years. Many of these centre around relationships, status and symbols of wealth.

The exhibition explores womxn through the work of local artists, either engaging directly with thread, fibre or textile as a medium of expression, or indirectly by referring to the connotations brought forth by the ideas associated with the exhibition title. Loaded with gender connotations and power hierarchies, fibre-based handicrafts such as crochet, embroidery, knitting, macramé, quilting, sewing, or other media referencing ideas and associations to threads provide a fitting platform to examine the roles and representations within and round womxn in our society.

Taking as her subject flowers and using a modern digitising method, the image is at once abstract and recognisable. The result is a work which illustrates impermanence and the classical idea of vanitas — reminders of mortality and mutability.

Featuring Artists: Yolanda Mazwana, Ronél De Jager, Jed Gil, Lucy Jane Turpin, Givan Lötz, Dathini Mzayiya, Theresa-Anne Mackintosh, Minenkulu Ngoyi, Ayanda Mabulu

I've recently made the decision to use Instagram Stories as the main online platform where followers have access to gain insight into my daily studio practice.

Follow my Instagram account @roneldejagerart for regular in-studio updates.

One must look at a painting from a distance. This is the right way. Then things like perspective and proportion and use of colour all fall into place. So I was raised. But time and again I caught myself sneaking closer and closer to the painting, especially a painting in a medium like oil or acrylic. I wanted to get up close to see the paint, perhaps smell the paint, to experience something of the tangibility of paint; I wanted to see the brushstrokes, the marks of the artist's hand. Because the paint itself is a carrier of expression, of feeling. In a way, paint is the solidification of the moment the painting was made. Of the energy in that moment.

This year marked a collaborative effort with the Rupert Museum’s first ever Open Call to artists, launched in September 2020. The initiative was to use one of the most iconic pieces from the Rupert Art Foundation Collection namely Colour Symphony by South African artist Michèle Nigrini for the public to respond to.

"Our homes are populated with houseplants, little domesticated slivers of nature, as we cultivate a sense of security that artificially occludes the outside world" – Ronél de Jager.

A summer online group exhibition.

"Our homes are populated with houseplants, little domesticated slivers of nature, as we cultivate a sense of security that artificially occludes the outside world" – Ronél de Jager.

A Group Exhibition featuring Artists: André Serfontein, Floris van Zyl, Helena Hugo, Ingrid Winterbach, Karlien de Villiers, Le Mouton Riche, Marguerite Roux, Noeleen Kleve, Ronél de Jager, Stephen Rosin & Strijdom van der Merwe.

Art is a long-term investment. Therefore, art is doing all the hard work for your future. When you invest in the art world, you invest in your future.

Absa Artworks is a series of webinars where we guide you on making art work for your investment portfolio.

With our host, Dr Paul Bayliss, Senior Specialist Art Curator at Absa, as well as several industry leaders and local personalities, we’ll delve deeper into the world of art buying, investing and collecting, while celebrating our rich artistic talent from across the continent.

Not only will you have a good overview of the visual arts industry, but you’ll learn the basic principles on how to start, maintain and even grow your own art collection. In addition, we’ll share personal insights as we meet a number of artists.

Absa Artworks is free of charge, so register for your first webinar today.

De Jager’s work recently featured on ABSA’s first online auction ‘ABSA Art Hotspot’, hosted by Aspire Art Auctions. The auction was created to assist artists during the COVID-19 pandemic and funds raised are to be shared by the 25 artists taking part; a portion will also go toward supporting the broader arts industry.

De Jager’s work ‘Aeon’ from her award-winning solo exhibition ‘Broeigrond’ fetched a significantly higher price than the estimate. Four works from this series have previously been acquired by the ABSA Art Collection, and this latest auction result has pushed this series’ value up by 40%.

Absa Art and Aspire Art Auctions have come together in the fight against COVID-19 to auction 49 pieces of art from 25 talented African artists to bidders. Funds raised will be shared by the 25 artists taking part and will also go toward supporting the broader arts industry. The auction is open to the public, with pieces starting from R2 500 up to R280 000.

The Klein Karoo National Arts Festival has built a reputation for its extraordinary visual arts exhibitions over two decades and this year has encouraged them to take the virtual leap. Although the cancelation of the 2020 festival due to the current Covid-19 pandemic remains a great disappointment, we look forward to launching this exciting new digital experience. This initiative creates an important platform to visual artists to sell their work and generate an income from works that were created for the KKNK this year.

In March 2020, COVID-19 forced galleries to close their doors and theatres to turn off the lights. Overnight events, performances and exhibitions were cancelled, planned work shelved and important revenue streams lost. But the arts are resilient, and projects were born that not only reflected the current situation but offered hope in a changing world.

On 11 May, the UJ Choir launched its ninth album, When the Earth Stands Still, and with it came an emotional interdisciplinary project, 'The Pandemic'. UJ Arts & Culture, a division of the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture (FADA) at the University of Johannesburg, has invited over 25 visual artists, dancers and choreographers to each develop a new work inspired by music from the UJ Choir’s album 'When the Earth Stands Still'.

UJ Arts & Culture commissioned over 25 South African artists to create a body of work in the comfort of their homes during lockdown inspired by UJ Choir’s new album 'When the Earth Stands Still'. Follow the #UJPandemic journey over the next 5 weeks and be inspired.

After the announcement of the national lockdown for South Africans in March 2020, De Jager’s production came to a stand-still. Many exhibition opportunities were cancelled and there was much uncertainty about the future of the art industry. De Jager’s husband, cinematographer and wildlife documentary camera-operator, Thomas Pretorius, took a job in Limpopo and the family had to temporarily relocate, resulting in de Jager’s four-month residency in Limpopo. “For once, I am in the opposing seat than everyone at home – being isolated is nothing novel to me and it has been a surreal opportunity to be able to experience nature while there is even less interaction with people. This time has allowed me complete absorption of this natural environment; interacting with wild life up-close and personal; learning about conservationist’s battle for the protection of threatened species and environmental issues affecting these species – it has truly been inspiring experience, and one I wish to incorporate into my work.”

Ronél de Jager’s work ‘When the Earth Stands Still’ is a response to a poem of the same name by Don Macdonald. Performed by the University of Johannesburg Choir, the haunting piece forms a context into which De Jager’s oil painting of destruction or regrowth fits.

Working from an image she had shot at the Bakoni Ruins in Mpumalanga while on a 2018 residency, the work evokes both stillness and trepidation, a twist on the trope of idealized African landscape paintings. Limiting her palette to luminous tones of pinks and reds reflect the fact that De Jager’s original photograph was shot in infrared; at the time, this choice explored her interest in the real versus the fictional; De Jager’s works at this time showed an anticipated future for either potential or regret. With this work, made specially for the ‘Pandemic’ exhibition, the imagery took on another dimension of meaning.

De Jager’s production has come to a halt, with the cancellation of many planned exhibition opportunities. The uncertainty in the industry affects us all. One such opportunity is the annual KKNK Festival which is held annually.

During this time De Jager reverted to working on her website allowing to work remotely.