Sphumelele Zondi wins New Signatures Visual Arts Competition 2026
· The South African
Johannesburg-based 26-year-old visual artist Sphumelele Zondi has been announced as the overall winner of the 2026 Sasol New Signatures Visual Arts Competition for her powerful mixed-media work, The laundry of a nation (2026).
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Zondi receives a cash prize of R100 000 and the opportunity to present a solo exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum in 2027.
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Born in KwaZulu-Natal and now based in Johannesburg, Sphumelele Zondi works primarily in sculpture and mixed media.
Her practice explores memory, inherited narratives and the relationship between past and present, drawing on personal and collective histories, resilience, and the emotional traces embedded in everyday materials.
She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art from the Durban University of Technology.
Draws from the visual language of clothing
In The laundry of a nation, Sphumelele Zondi reflects on the emotional and social inheritance carried by young people within contemporary South Africa.
Drawing from the visual language of clothing, labour, domesticity and repetition, the work considers how national histories continue to live within ordinary bodies and everyday materials.
In many South African homes, clothing exists beyond appearance. It carries labour, survival, class, memory, religion and economic struggle.
Garments move between siblings, neighbours, workers, schools, churches and communities, slowly absorbing the emotional conditions of the environments through which they pass. Within this context, clothing becomes both witness and archive.
“This was my first time entering the competition,” said Zondi.
“What prompted me to enter Sasol New Signatures was the incredible opportunities and exposure it provides to young emerging artists. I first became aware of the competition during my university years, and this year I felt ready to take that step and put my work forward. The competition holds such great significance in the South African art space and an important platform where my work could be seen and engaged with.”
Final round of judging
This year saw a total of 938 works submitted at eight collection points across South Africa. Of these, 123 works were selected to advance to the final round of judging and to appear in the 2026 exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum.
The 2026 runner-up is Sive Ntombana, 23, a painter and mural artist based in Makhanda who is currently doing a Master of Fine Arts at Rhodes University. Ntombana receives a prize of R25 000.
His work titled Umlandeli, forms part of a practice-based research project exploring the concept of trauma in the Xhosa rural Eastern Cape.
The body of work examines how trauma is interpreted, engaged with and experienced in different states through a reflexive perspective.
“I work with ingcawe (a traditional Xhosa white blanket featuring a distinct dark or black stripe) and collected ochres to reference the rural,” said Ntombana.
“Through collecting and working with ochres, I invoke ukusula, a mural painting practice in the Mpondo rural area, to think about healing in practice and as a practice.”
The five Merit Award winners receive R10 000 each, and they are (in alphabetical order):
Charlie de Bruto (21) – Pretoria
Ball buster, 2026
Mixed media
Inga Lokwe (28) – Pretoria
Qula kwedini, 2025
Glass, metal, wood
Wisani Manyisi (41) – Johannesburg
Dance of memory, 2026
Mixed media on paper
Thomas Masingi (35) – Polokwane
The desire to become one series, 2025
Digital photography on true ivory
Charné Mungur (49) – Gqeberha
Echoes of silence, 2025
Steel
The Sasol New Signatures exhibition, featuring the work of the 2026 winners and finalists, will take place at the Pretoria Art Museum, from 10 September to 8 November 2026.
Alongside the exhibition is the solo exhibition of 2025 winner, Juandré van Eck – Die Vallei van Adem.
All finalists’ works are included in the competition catalogue, available online. The exhibition can also be viewed virtually via the website.