Sasol new signatures

/ The Sasol New Signatures Visual Arts Competition 2026

Johannesburg-based visual artist Sphumelele Zondi (26) 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.
Zondi receives a cash prize of R100 000 and the opportunity to present a solo exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum in 2027.

Born in KwaZulu-Natal and now based in Johannesburg, 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. In The laundry of a nation, 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.”

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. Sasol has proudly sponsored the competition for the past 36 years, championing emerging South African artists and creating opportunities for them to develop their talent, gain recognition and build their careers.

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 are:

Charlie de Bruto
Ball buster, 2026
Mixed media

Inga Lokwe
Qula kwedini, 2025
Glass, metal, wood

Wisani Manyisi
Dance of memory, 2026
Mixed media on paper

Thomas Masingi
The desire to become one series, 2025
Digital photography on true ivory

Charné Mungur
Echoes of silence, 2025
Steel

Reflecting on Zondi’s winning work and the breadth of the 2026 exhibition, Sasol New Signatures Chairperson, Pfunzo Sidogi said “The laundry of a nation (2026) is an exemplar of how the emerging artists represented in this year’s final exhibition are advancing the tradition of art that tackles the big and difficult questions of life in profound creative registers. I sincerely hope that every person who experiences this year’s exhibition of the 123 artworks that made it into the final round, and the exceptional debut solo exhibition, Die Vallei van Adem, by last year’s overall winner Juandré van Eck, will embrace the playful, healing, restorative, questioning, and sometimes adversarial temperament embedded in the various narratives on show.”
Sidogi also extended gratitude to those involved in the adjudication process: “I extend my sincerest gratitude to all judges from the regional and final rounds. I have the highest reverence for the individual contributions they are making to the visual arts sector in our country. Their professionalism and generosity during the adjudication process have been infectious to me.”
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.

Pretoria Art Museum
Corner Francis Baard & Wessels Street, Arcadia Park, Arcadia

Museum hours
Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00 to 17:00; Closed on Mondays and public holidays.