Meet our Vusa Award winner

At this year’s Contra.Joburg event, which saw artists around Johannesburg opening up their studio spaces to the public, we asked attendees to vote for their hottest artwork in ourVusa Award competition(named after our hottest ever sauce, the new Vusa PERi-PERi).

From the entries,finalistswere drawn and then META Foundation, the organiser of Contra.Joburg, narrowed it down to a single winner:Nadine Mathenjwa

Link to this headingCongratulations, Nadine!

In early July, all the finalists were invited to a bespoke online social media workshop for creatives, and we took the chance to chat to Nadine about her prize, which includes not only the title of Vusa Award, but also R10 000 in cash from Nando’s and Contra.Joburg and a three-month artist residency with the Southern African Foundation of Contemporary Art (SAFFCA).

Link to this headingAbout Nadine

Nadine Mathenjwa is an emerging artist born and raised in Gauteng, South Africa. She graduated from Artist Proof Studio in 2021 and completed her fourth-year internship programme at the studio in February 2023. She’s currently based in Ellis House, Johannesburg, one of the venues that took part in Contra.Joburg.

Nadine says she was not expecting the Vusa Award nomination, let alone winning.It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, she says.There was a lot going on for me in the weeks before Contra.Joburg and then my studio flooded the day before the event. We had no electricity in the building that day. I was so in my head – I didn’t even really get to think about what was going on with the people visiting. I was just trying to stay afloat and pay rent. A part of me thought if I wasn’t going to sell at least one piece, I’d be moving back home. Winning the award gave me hope again. It’s going to do so much for me, professionally, especially the residency. I’m very excited about that.

Nadine has always been creative and wanted to study fashion. However, finances were an issue and fashion school was expensive, so she decided to put her artistic talents to use elsewhere and began studying at Artist Proof Studio, where she discovered the world of fine art.

I hadn’t known anything about art – I just knew I could draw, she says.But as I learned about the art world, I started to understand more about it, about myself and my style. I started to think about art as a possible career.

She explored printmaking and discovered her passion for colour. Today, Nadine blends her love of fashion and art in her works. She starts each project by crafting a crochet item, whether it’s a hat, a bag or crochetnetting, which she then models, taking inspiration from fashion shoots and editorial spreads in publications like Vogue. She then captures photos and uses these as a basis for each artwork, using mixed materials to create collages.

I had low self-esteem at school and fashion is something that gets me out of my shell and helps me to express myself, she says.