Bronwyn Katz says, “I’m both honoured and excited to receive the FNB Art Prize for 2019. Thank you to FNB and FNB Art Joburg for making it possible, to the jury for choosing me as the recipient, and to my gallery, blank projects, for their support.”

blank projects owner Jonathan Garnham adds, Bronwyn Katz’s “unique practice speaks to a singular vision that is both compelling and breaks new ground. The prize is not only a well deserved acknowledgement of her exceptional talent and hard work, but will hopefully also inspire young practitioners to be adventurous and pursue their careers with conviction.”

Since 2011 the FNB Art Prize has become one of the coveted visual art prizes on the African continent. As well as the opportunity to showcase their work at FNB Bank City, media interest and coverage of the fair helps to catapult the artist and their work to the centre of contemporary art discourse. This in turn helps to build popular investment into the winner’s budding career; helping to make it sustainable.

Coinciding with the launch of FNB Art Joburg, the FNB Prize has been reformatted to best support the selected artist’s growth and practice, namely through:

• The addition of an international residency
• A long-term public art installation at FNB Bank City

For the 2019 edition of the prize there will be no installation at the fair itself, however the cash prize continues.

On the judges panel were Alissa Jenkins, a leader in the art, cultural and sports creative marketing industry; Ashraf Jamal, a cultural analyst, author, editor, and Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; and Nicole Siegenthaler the fair manager of FNB Art Joburg and co-curator of the fair’s inaugural Gallery Lab (with Banele Khoza).

About Bronwyn Katz

Born in 1993, in Kimberley, South Africa, Bronwyn Katz lives and works in Johannesburg. Incorporating sculpture, installation, video and performance, Katz’s practice engages with the concept of land as a repository of memory, reflecting on the notion of place or space as lived experience, and the ability of the land to remember and communicate the memory of its occupation.

Using found materials as the departure point for her works, Katz’s approach to making is driven foremost by formal concerns such as composition and line, expressed in an abstract minimalist language. Conceptually, her sculptures refer to the political context of their making, embodying subtle acts of resistance that draw attention to the social constructions and boundaries that continue to define those spaces.

Katz has held five solo exhibitions to date, most recently at blank projects in Cape Town (2019) and A Silent Line, Lives Here at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2018). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including The Empathy Lab (Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, 2019); Material Insanity (Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech, 2019); Road to the Unconscious (Peres Projects, Berlin, 2019); Sculpture (Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius, 2018); Tell Freedom (Kunsthal KAdE, Amersvoort, 2018); Le jour qui vient (Galerie des Galeries, Paris, 2017); and the 12th Dak’Art Biennale (Senegal, 2016). Katz is a founding member of iQhiya, an 11-women artist collective which has performed across various spaces, including Documenta (in Kassel and Athens), Greatmore Studios, and Iziko South African National Gallery.

FNB Art Joburg takes place from 13 – 15. September at Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.