What will you be doing on Friday, 1st August 2025? At the KZNSA, you are spoilt for choice!
First on the list, they are delighted to partner up with Strauss & Co, Africa’s leading art auction house to assist members of the public with obligation-free valuations of their artworks.
As part of the current exhibition, the Annual Members’ Award Show: Imisinga (Currents) there will be a talk held from 17h30 – 19h00 covering topics relevant to aspiring artists and creatives.
“We have the pleasure of hosting our top three artists as speakers Thobani Khanyile, Ann-Marie Tully and Gary McIver who will be talking on their winning pieces and the processes involved in their inception, creation and installation. Dr Ismail Mahomed – Director, Centre for Creative Arts at UKZN will be talking us through the Principles for Sustaining Effective Partnerships,” says a KZNSA representative.
That is not all that is on at the KZNSA for this #FirstFriday. They will also be holding a raffle draw, with the winner receiving a KZNSA-branded sweatshirt and a couple of extra goodies! KZNSA Members will receive one free entry into the raffle on presentation of their digital membership cards at the door. Entries into the raffle will be available for non-members at R50 per entry, and all are encouraged to purchase multiple entries to increase their chances of winning!
First Fridays Art Valuation Day
Friday, 1 August 2025 | 14h00 – 17h00
Do you have an artwork that you would like get evaluated? Then this one is for you! Strauss & Co, in association with KZNSA and the regular First Friday events at the Gallery, will be available to assist members of the public with obligation-free valuations of their artworks. This is an exclusive opportunity to have your artworks assessed and valued by experts! Be at the KZNSA Gallery from 14h00 – 17h00 and pay a nominal charge of R50 per item to get an artwork evaluated which will go towards supporting the KZNSA Gallery programmes.
(Thobani Khanyile)
In Conversation With Annual Members' Award Show First Prize Winner | Thobile Khanyile
FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST | 17h30 –
19h00
Thobani Khanyile is a creative born in 1994 in Durban, KwaMashu. He is mostly intrigued by the realism art style which mimics reality like a mirror. How the realism art style captures, is how he sees emotions being evoked by art. The subjects that he covers most of the time is the plight of man, which he deems as being mental and physical. He believes that this is because all of man have a struggle to glory journey whether it is in micro or macro form.
He works in pencil, charcoal, paint, ink, soft/oil pastels. He is influenced by Hip Hop which he believes commonly depicts the human story in different perspectives, the plight, the glory and the third person perspective.
He completed a Bachelor of Visual Communication from Eduvos and he is currently working in Pinetown Songo Africa as graphic design.
The prizes are made possible by the generosity of the Key Foundation and the Joan Emmanuel Trust.
(Ann-Marie Tully)
In Conversation With Annual Members' Award Show Second Prize Winner | Ann-Marie Tully
FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST | 17:30 -
19:00
Ann-Marie Tully is a South African artist and academic working across printmaking, contemporary jewellery, and textile-based media. Her work explores human-animal-plant ontologies, material culture, rhetorical systems of meaning, also engaging with themes of time, history, myth, postmemory, and intergenerational trauma. Ann-Marie’s practice draws on posthumanist and decolonial perspectives and is represented in major collections, including the Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Oliewenhuis Art Museum.
She is a lecturer in the Department of Fine Art and Jewellery Design at the Durban University of Technology and co-founder of Art Print Studio KZN. Tully holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and has extensive experience in arts education and visual research.
The prizes are made possible by the generosity of the Key Foundation and the Joan Emmanuel Trust.
(Gary McIver)
In Conversation With Annual Members' Award Show Second Prize Winner | Gary Mclver
FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST | 17:30 -
19:00
Gary McIver was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1972. He graduated with an Honours degree from the Fine Arts Department at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1994. His work has been included in various group exhibitions since then.
A dedicated art educator, he currently heads the Visual Arts Department at Durban Girls’ College. He has previously led departments at St Stithians College and the Michael Mount Waldorf School and served as an IEB Visual Arts examiner from 2009 to 2014. In addition to his teaching and painting, he has undertaken design briefs for a range of corporate clients over the years.
Gary’s work is held in private collections across South Africa. As a painter, he is grounded in craftsmanship and emotional depth, drawing from the wellsprings of tradition. His paintings often centre on the human figure — whether individual or universal — exploring themes of mortality, catharsis, and dignity, while affirming the timeless power of mimesis, beauty, craftsmanship, and figuration. He draws quiet inspiration from the advice of the painter Apelles, embracing the expressive possibilities of gesture, roughness, verisimilitude, and restraint.
He remains committed to the ancient craft of painting. In his work, surface, texture, and the tactile substance of paint are inseparable from meaning. His work affirms the enduring and essential mystery and goodness of the visible, material world. Matter is seen not merely as substance, but as a vessel of presence, a bearer of light, and a participant in meaning.
The prizes are made possible by the generosity of the Key Foundation and the Joan Emmanuel Trust.
Rand Mutual Assurance Young Artists’ Programme Exhibition: Nurturing Emerging Talent At The KZNSA
Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Rand Mutual Assurance (RMA), the RMA Young Artists’ Project Exhibition (YAP) is BACK ...and will take place at the KwaZulu-Natal Society of Arts (KZNSA) Gallery in Glenwood, Durban from August 22 - September 21 2025.
While Durban’s art-loving public will have an opportunity to share in the work of this year’s talented intake during the exhibition period, the project primarily provides a platform for the support of young artists in conceptualising and producing new work.
The exhibition opens on Friday August 22 2025 and the artists will host Walkabouts on Saturday August 23 2025 from 10h00 to 12h00, which are free, and open to the public. In addition, there will be opportunities for school and university groups to visit the gallery and meet with the featured artists, on a ‘By Appointment’ basis.
For any enquiries emailgallery@kznsagallery.co.za
The KZNSA Young Artists’
Project (YAP) is generously funded by Rand Mutual Assurance.
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