VUSIMUZI KHUMALO

(b.1951, Balfour North, Gauteng, South Africa)

Vusi Khumalo completed his basic education in Germiston, thereafter spending 10 years working in various companies in South Africa.  In 1986, whilst still working in Germiston, Khumalo felt impelled to leave South Africa, as a long-standing member of the African National Congress, and so left with his family for A.N.C. camps in Zambia and Tanzania.  It was in Dakawa Camp, Tanzania, where he first had an opportunity to explore fully his life-long hobby, art. Having completed his 0-level General Certificate of Education, through correspondence with the University of London, Khumalo began to be trained and later, to teach textile printing, art and design.  This culminated in a summer course in art in the Gerlesberg Art School, Sweden, in 1991.

In 1992, Khumalo was repatriated and the Dakawa Art and Craft Community Centre was re-established in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape.  He continued to teach there and his efforts won him a one-year scholarship to the Konstfack National Art College, Stockholm, where he gained a certificate in textile printing and "art".  In 1996, Dakawa’s funding from Sweden was withdrawn and Khumalo decided the time was ripe for him to dedicate himself full time to his own art.

His efforts to render the South African landscape, and particularly the burgeoning squatter communities within that landscape, were frustrated, as he found that oil painting did not bring him the intense realism that he wanted to evoke.  This led him to his startlingly real collages.  Khumalo, by reconstructing the infamous squatter camps, takes us where we might, otherwise, fear to tread and, perhaps, reminds us that behind the media facade of brutality, crime and squalor, these "growths" on our landscape are populated by human beings under trying circumstances.

Khumalo is now working as a full-time artist in the Eastern Cape, where he lives with his wife, Lokhuthula and their two children.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2024

The Journey Continues, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2022     
Uhambo Iwanmi, solo, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021     
Oasis, 25th anniversary group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020     
Us, Everard Read group online exhibition, South Africa

Imago, group exhibition, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2019     
Winter, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2018     
20 Years On, solo exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017     
Southern Abstraction, group exhibition, Everard Read, London, UK
2016     
Opening Gallery Exhibition, CIRCA Gallery, London, UK
Winter Collection, Group Show, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2015     

Empire, Group Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2014     

People and Places, Group Exhibition, Imibala Gallery in association with Everard Read, South Africa
Postcards from Mzansi, Solo Exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town, South Africa

2013     

Possessed, Group Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Centenary, Group Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2011     

Small Works, Solo Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2010     

View from the South, Group Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Khumalo, Mzimba, Dyaloyi, Three Man Exhibition at Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2009     

The City, Group Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2008    

The Wave, Chinese Cultural Exchange, the Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2007     

One Man Exhibition, Portland Gallery, London, UK
Exhibition at the Hubei Institute, Wuhan China as the second leg of a cultural exchange

2006     

Cultural Exchange – A group exhibition exploring China with 4 Professors from The Hubei Institute of fine art after a           visit to Wuhan China – Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Abstraction, Solo Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2005     

Solo Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2004     

One Man Exhibition, Portland Gallery, London, UK

2003     

Solo Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2000     

One Man Exhibition, October at the Portland Gallery, London, UK

1998     

Solo Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

1996     

Two Man Exhibition, Two World with Roxandra Dardagan and Skotnes Gallery, Albany Museum, Grahamstown Art Festival, South Africa
Me and Myself, Solo Exhibition, Wezandla Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth Textile Art Printing and Painting, South Africa

1995     

Manscape, Solo Exhibition, Wezandla Gallery, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

1994     

One-man Exhibition, Konstfack National Art College, Stockholm, Sweden

1989-91 

Part of a touring group exhibition in Sweden and Norway   

1988-91 

Saba Saba National Exhibition in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

SELECTED CORPORATE COLLECTIONS

Cazenove & Co, Johannesburg
Coca Cola South Africa
Calajero
Capital Alliance Holdings
Daimler Chrysler (S.A.)
Didata, Johannesburg
E.F.T Corporation
F.B.C. Fidelity Bank
Fisher Hoffman And Sithole

Johannesburg Consolidated Investments Ltd
Mckinsey & Co (Usa)
Merril Lynch
Mvelaphanda Holdings
Old Mutual Plc (London)
Privest, Johannesburg
Sanlam
Standard Bank Investment Corporation Ltd
Telkom
Task Uk Ltd