Soweto visual artist to exhibit internationally
Fhatuwani Mukheli was born in Soweto in 1985 and works in Johannesburg across painting, photography and film.
Soweto-born visual artist Fhatuwani Mukheli anchors Gallery MOMO’s debut presentation at the third edition of the Atlanta Art Fair, running from October 1 to 4, 2026, at Pullman Yards.
Fresh off its recognition as Outstanding Art Gallery at the 2026 National Arts Council Awards, the Johannesburg gallery brings Mukheli’s distinct South African perspective to American audiences alongside fellow Johannesburg-based artist Blessing N. Blaai.
Born in Soweto in 1985, Mukheli brings a deeply rooted cultural heritage to the global stage.
ALSO READ: City of Ekurhuleni music workshop empowers aspiring artists
Working across painting, photography, and film, his portraiture reinterprets classical picture-making through a distinctly local lens. In his recent paintings, traditional European conventions like monumental figures, structured light, drapery, and stillness intersect with warm sepia figuration and earthy reds drawn directly from his Venda roots.
Mukheli uses these classical techniques to argue for strong Black presence inside a visual tradition that historically reserved monumentality for other subjects. His featured centrepiece at the fair, a large four-panel painting titled A Study of Freedom, showcases this balance between psychological depth and historical dialogue.
Speaking on the transition of his work from South Africa to the United States, Mukheli notes that the beautiful thing about art leaving home is that it doesn’t lose where it comes from, but gains new meaning through the people who meet it.
ALSO READ: Ekurhuleni artist turns vision loss into powerful art of resilience
Complementing Mukheli’s monumental portraiture, artist Blessing N. Blaai presents mixed media works that probe memory, environment, and personal perseverance.
Born in 1994, Blaai blends figuration with a layered symbolic lexicon of architectural fragments, birds, and domestic objects in worked surfaces of oil, acrylic, watercolour, and ink. His featured 2026 work, Surmount, follows his 2026 solo show Surrogate Emotions and reflects on reward following periods of trial, an idea he feels is central to bring to Atlanta.
For Gallery MOMO, founded in Johannesburg in 2002, this showcase extends a sustained commitment to placing African art within global historical dialogues.
The gallery has built a steady footprint in the United States through annual participation in Expo Chicago since 2019, showings at Navy Pier, and an ongoing residency programme with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The presentation at Pullman Yards joins over 70 international galleries, reinforcing the stand that these works participate in the broader conversation of art history not merely as regional representation, but as vital, belonging voices. Full presentation details and pricing remain available to media, collectors, and advisors upon request.
