Inside the hexagonal turret where Dada Khanyisa’s art refuses to stay still

At RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2026, Cape Town-based artist Dada Khanyisa installed a body of work that bent to fit its architecture and sparked conversations they never anticipated.

A hexagonal turret is not the most obvious home for a body of work built on the rhythms of ordinary South African life.

But for Dada Khanyisa, whose sculptural paintings and painted wooden assemblages have long resisted easy categorisation, the constraints of the space became part of the work itself.

Above and Beyond, Khanyisa’s Special Project at the fourth edition of RMB Latitudes Art Fair, was installed within the Turret.

The fair ran from 22 to 24 May 2026 at Shepstone Gardens, and RMB Latitudes describes itself as “a leading platform for contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora,” known for “its distinctive model prioritising exchange, sustainability and long-term visibility.”

When the building tells you what to do

The Turret’s geometry demanded immediate reckoning.

Upon arriving at the space, Khanyisa and their team realised the structure was not simply circular but hexagonal, a distinction that changed everything about how the works would be arranged.

“We had to think up ways to host this wide presentation in a format that complements the space and the intended approach,” they told The Citizen, noting that some works had to be physically amended to fit the designated walls and their joining corners.

The outcome was what the curatorial text describes as “a layered environment in which figures gather, lean and interact.”

Khanyisa’s sculptural paintings push outward from the wall, collapsing distinctions between image and object, surface and environment.

RMB Latitudes notes that the installation “responds directly to the unique architectural character of the space, immersing viewers in an environment where painting becomes spatial, social and experiential.”

Politics of the ordinary

Born in 1991 in Umzimkhulu and now based in Cape Town, Khanyisa has built a practice that RMB Latitudes describes as moving “fluidly between painting, collage, relief sculpture and installation,” drawing from “contemporary South African social life” to transform “intimate everyday interactions into reflections on youth culture, belonging and collective identity.”

For Khanyisa, the choice of subject matter – dinner scenes, domestic spaces, familiar figures – is less a creative decision than a natural consequence of how they think.

They say they can only speak from a familiar point and articulate through what they know and understand.

“I feel like the ‘ordinary’ serves as a base and trampoline for my ideation,” they said.

The figures themselves sit somewhere between invention and observation.

“Most of them are made up, some have references that stretch and border on stereotyping,” Khanyisa said.

“These are generally people I keep around me or people I encounter through books and the internet.”

A work that is never quite done

There is a restlessness built into Khanyisa’s practice that extends beyond subject matter.

For them, no work ever reaches a definitive state of completion.

“A piece is never complete; there is always a part of a work that seems like it needs reworking. I just have to make peace with where I stop when they collect a work,” they said.

It is a tension that seems fitting for an artist whose assemblages physically resist the flatness of the wall, reaching into the room and refusing to be contained by the frame.

What a different audience does to your work

RMB Latitudes positions itself as a fair, explicitly committed to broadening access.

Lucy MacGarry, Co-founder and Director of Latitudes, has been clear about the fair’s priorities.

“Our priority is, and always has been, to put artists first, centring their voices, supporting their long-term visibility, and building pathways for sustainable practice,” she said.

“RMB Latitudes reimagines how the art ecosystem can work more inclusively, for artists and for the wider cultural community.”

For Khanyisa, showing within that context produced something unexpected, not just visibility, but genuine dialogue.

They said the fair would allow their work to be experienced by a wider demographic than they might otherwise reach.

“It was interesting to engage with people who found resonance in what I create,” Khanyisa added.

“The RMB Latitudes Art Fair inspired a different approach and sparked new conversations around my work.”

Independence, gratitude and no easy answers

Operating outside a gallery structure in South Africa is not a romantic proposition.

Khanyisa is candid about the difficulty, describing the process of reconciling career ambitions with financial reality as ongoing.

“Independence is not easy but it offers a sincere gratification,” they said. “While this is not my long-term stance, I will say that I am learning a lot through this process.”

They were also deliberate in crediting Stevenson and their previous gallery representatives for their contributions to their positioning within the art ecosystem.

This is an acknowledgement that resists any neat narrative of the self-made artist.

As for what they hope someone entirely new to galleries takes from their work, Khanyisa had no answer prepared and offered none. “Mainly because I have no projections for the audience,” they said.