Southern Guild returns to the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in 2022 with an extensive exhibition of paintings, ceramics, sculpture, functional art and the gallery’s first NFT work. Southern Guild’s booth will explore the confluence of fine art and collectible design at a pivotal moment in the gallery’s trajectory as it broadens its curatorial programme and expands its artist stable this year.

Among the artists whose work will be presented at the fair are Navel Seakamela, Patrick Bongoy and Jozua Gerrard, all of whom are now represented by the gallery, as well as Nandipha Mntambo, whose first collection of functional sculpture, Transcending Instinct, opens a day before the fair (16 February to 8 April).

Southern Guild’s presentation at ICTAF will include several significant ceramic artworks by leading practitioners in the field – Andile Dyalvane, Zizipho Poswa, Madoda Fani and Chuma Maweni. Ceramics have become a highlight of the gallery’s ethos with work by these artists having recently been acquired by major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and sought out by important private collectors. Following their success at Design Miami in December – where the gallery’s ceramics-focused booth won the Best Gallery Presentation – Dyalvane, Poswa, Fani and Maweni will exhibit large-scale new works at ICTAF that draw on their cultural heritage and personal narratives and interests. These include a pair of monumental works by Poswa, glazed and painted in her signature exuberant colour, that form part of her Magodi series celebrating the majesty of traditional African hairstyles.

Johannesburg-based Navel Seakamela, whose emotive portraits explore the tender side of masculinity, will show new mixed-media works on paper while Cape Town-born emerging artist Jozua Gerrard’s series of large enamel paintings on glass reflects on intimacy in a social media-saturated age. Cape Town-based Congolese artist Patrick Bongoy will debut a six-metre-wide wall-hanging painstakingly woven from strips of recycled rubber, while another artist from the continent, the Beninese Dominique Zinkpé, will present three abstract sculptures made from assemblages of carved wooden Ibeji dolls.

Justine Mahoney will unveil a new bronze sculpture and NFT based on the French mythological figure Mélusine, a female water spirit who is depicted as half serpent or fish. Mahoney’s fantastical vision is given both three-dimensional and digital form through a collaged composite of visual references she takes from contemporary pop culture, children’s stories, and digital media.

Other works being launched at the fair include a bronze bust by sculptor Otto du Plessis that will form part of an exhibition later in the year; a bronze and timber table, etched brass panel and bronze sculpture by Stanislaw Trzebinski; a patinated aluminium mirror in a black granite base by Jesse Ede; Belfast black granite; a photographic print by Sisonke Papu, a multi-disciplinary artist and igqirha (traditional healer) from Mthatha, Eastern Cape; and two monumental hand-turned wooden bowls by Rodney Band.

Southern Guild’s booth will also showcase Rich Mnisi’s Nyoka (“Snake”) console; timber seats carved from tree forks by arborist Adam Birch; a forged copper and iron sculpture by Conrad Hicks, whose solo Cu runs concurrent with the art fair; and limited-edition furniture by Dokter and Misses, Gregor Jenkin and Meyer von Wielligh.