Artist of the day: Artist of the day (Africa week), September 21: Nicholas Hlobo, South African artist, sculptor

Nicholas Hlobo (1975) is a South African artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He earned a Bachelor of Technology from Technikon Witwatersrand in 2002. He creates large sculptural works that are expansive masses which at once feel oozey, voluptuous and highly structured. The contrast of femininity and masculinity is created by his use of dissimilar materials such as rubber inner tubes, ribbon, organza, lace and found objects. He creates large sculptural works that are expansive masses which at once feel oozey, voluptuous and highly structured. The contrast of femininity and masculinity is created by his use of dissimilar materials such as rubber inner tubes, ribbon, organza, lace and found objects.

Hlobo is the winner of the 2006 Tollman Award for Visual Art, the 2009 Standard Bank Young Artist Award, he was a finalist for the Future Generation Art Prize 2010. In 2010, Hlobo was selected as a protégé by mentor Sir Anish Kapoor as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, an international philanthropic programme that pairs masters in their disciplines with emerging talents for a year of one-to-one creative exchange.

Hlobo's work has been exhibited in the Tate Modern in London, the South African National Gallery, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, among several other venues. His work has also been included in the Havana Biennial of 2009 and the Guangzhou Triennial of 2008. Hlobo was the first black festival artist of the Aardklop arts festival in Potchefstroom in 2008. A major survey exhibition of Hlobo’s work was on at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. Hlobo and David Goldblatt were the only two South African artists invited by curator Bice Curiger to exhibit work on the international pavilion IllUMinations of the 2011 Venice Biennale.[6] He is included on La Triennale 2012 in Paris and on The Rainbow Nation, an exhibition of three generations of sculpture from South Africa, at The Hague.

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