The New Breed Art Competition was established in 2016 as a unique visual arts competition for Free State artists. Now in its sixth year, the competition provides an excellent platform for Free State artists to showcase their talent and benefit from the prizes and national exposure the competition provides.

For the competition exhibition, the judges carefully selected 27 works by 24 new breed artists to form part of the competition exhibition. From these 24 new breed artists, the judges were tasked to select the winner, runner-up, and 2 merit award winners, while the public was allowed the opportunity to vote for and so determine the public choice award winner.

The CEO of Phatshoane Henney Attorneys, and spokesperson for the New Breed Art competition, Lesley Mokgoro, announced the winners of the 2022 competition at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum on 03 November 2022. “Despite interesting debate and frank conversations about the subject choices of our 2022 artists, when it came down to selecting the winners, the judges were on the same page in their decisions. With the winning works dealing with tough topics and conversations, the judges felt inspired by the bravery and integrity of the artists and their choice of issues, expressing satisfaction at how the artists have in their art captured their lived experiences”, remarked Mokgoro.

This year’s eminent judges were Nathi Gumede, assistant project manager at the Art Bank of South Africa, Storm Janse van Rensburg, Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town and Melissa Goba, Independent curator and panel convener of the MTN and University of Johannesburg New Contemporaries Legacy Panel. Nathi spoke on behalf of the judges and remarked that their decisions were heavily reliant on the need to highlight artworks that spoke to prevalent social, economic and political issues and emphasized the importance of the artists making art that reflected society and provided a form of mirror for us as a society to look into and review as it were ourselves.

The public was allowed to vote and determine the 2022 Public Choice Award winner, and with more than 2200 votes cast by 1600 people, Keabetswe Mosetlhe, a 22-year-old deaf student from Thaba Nchu and a student at the Motheo FET College, won the award and prize money of R10 000 for her fragile, yet masterfully executed, ceramic figures entitled “Signing”.

The two Merit Awards were awarded firstly to Kamohelo Gift Sebonyane, for his mixed media work on canvas entitled “Let’s break the silence of the past”, and also Kwandiwa Dlwati, for his two works, one in ceramic and the other in mixed media, which deals with topics relating to the role of women in rural areas and the economic impact of load shedding on rural communities. Both these winners were awarded R10 000 in prize money.

The second-place winner, Katleho Lesige won R20 000 for his work titled “Surviving Lefatse”, a striking photograph casting an unfiltered spotlight on the continuing scourge of gender-based violence.

In deciding on the first prize winner, the commentary that dominated the conversation between the judges, related to the artist and her lived experience which so clearly shaped her fragile, emotional and delicate sculpted figures, portraying the struggles of hearing-impaired persons to communicate and be heard. “As a deaf person, I am not able to communicate with my family. My artwork describes my family and the challenges that I have when I want to express something. They do not know sign language and normally I have to do lip reading to communicate with them. Communication with my family is a real challenge for me”, said Keabetswe (translated from South African Sign Language).

The judges were unanimous in their decision and also echoed the sentiment of our public in selecting Keabetswe Mosetlhe as the overall winner of the 2022 New Breed Art Competition. Keabetswe was awarded R50,000 in prize money and receives national recognition as the winner of the 2022 New Breed Art competition.

Mokgoro thanked the competition partners for the support they continue to provide to the competition and their passion for art and the artists.

The 2022 competition partners were:

• Oliewenhuis Art Museum
• Art Bank of South Africa
• Free State Art Collective 

A special mention and thanks were also given to Absa Bank Limited for sponsoring an inspiring series of engaging online webinars with key South African artists under the New Breed Art banner. 

For more information on the competition and the winning artworks, visit www.newbreedart.co.za.

FOR FURTHER MEDIA INQUIRIES CONTACT: LELANIE DE WET, PR AND MARKETING MANAGER AT PHATSHOANE HENNEY ATTORNEYS, AT +27 51 400 4085 OR LELANIEDW@PHINC.CO.ZA.