Eclectica Contemporary Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2025

We are thrilled to announce our participation in this year’s Investec Cape Town Art Fair’s Tomorrows/Today section, showcasing a new body of work “Part Black, Part Anomaly” by Thando Phenyane.

With a proposition that is centered around Identity, space and belief systems, Thando Phenyane’s first solo presentation interprets and responds to the nuances that exist in navigating blackness that are framed in “Black Skin, White Masks” by Frantz Fanon. Fanon’s work offers a profound map of the psychological terrain shaped by colonization and its lingering effects on the Black psyche.

Curated by Mariella Franzoni, Tomorrows/Today 2025 in centered around the question of what does it mean to embrace an aesthetic of play within the realm of contemporary art practice?

Thando Phenyane

b. 1997, Johannesburg

Understanding the position of the black body existing in the “non-space”

My practice’s proposition is currently centred around black identity, space and belief systems that exist adjacent to blackness. With reference to black literature and film; my work speaks to the conflicting identities that get imposed onto or assimilated by the black figure.

The “non-space” is a by-product of the identity politics of said black figure and its relationship to the spaces it finds itself in.

The white backdrops in my work tries to describe this “non-space”. My aim is to build this non-space and create a context that allows the many repressed authenticities and impulses of the black figure to be the focal point.

Part Black, Part Anomaly

Thando Phenyane

With a proposition that is centered around Identity, space and belief systems, Thando Phenyane’s first solo presentation interprets and responds to the nuances that exist in navigating blackness that are framed in “Black Skin, White Masks” by Frantz Fanon. Fanon’s work offers a profound map of the psychological terrain shaped by colonization and its lingering effects on the Black psyche.

In Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Fanon peels back the layers of internalized oppression, revealing how identity, culture, and self-perception are warped within a world governed by racial hierarchies. At the heart of Fanon’s critique is the colonial gaze, a rigid, oppressive framework that distorts Blackness through the lens of white supremacy. Yet, it is precisely within this gaze, this site of rupture, that a space for play emerges. Play, as a radical act, transforms this gaze from an oppressive force into a site of resistance, creativity, and reimagination.

In this spirit, Thando Phenyane’s work disrupts Eurocentric standards, but it does so with a sense of playful defiance. His art dismantles binaries of beauty and worth, weaving together the serious and the whimsical, the historical and the fantastical. Phenyane reclaims visual space for Black bodies and narratives, not only as acts of defiance but as moments of joy, spontaneity, and possibility. Through vibrant aesthetics and playful forms, Phenyane challenges the colonial gaze, turning it into a mirror for new visions of Blackness sovereign, fluid, and full of life. Fanon’s legacy echoes in this playful reclamation, where the reimagining of Black identity becomes both a radical and joyful endeavor.

Phenyane’s art invites us into a future where Blackness is no longer constrained by the weight of colonial history but liberated through the act of play, a future where empowerment is found in the freedom to create, disrupt, and dream. Through this lens, Fanon’s critique becomes not only a call to resistance but an invitation to reimagine and playfully rebuild a world where Black art thrives without limits.