Noxolo Miya
Pretoria - Born in 1994, Kganya Mogashoa is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who creates mixed medium paintings focusing on portraiture and figures.
She is the founder of Koranges Art and says she is inspired by personal experiences. Among her desires is to change the trajectory of behavioural patterns that affect mental health and women in society.
Magashoa is also part of the 2022/23 Incubator Programme, where she is being mentored by the acclaimed visual artist Nomaza Nongqunga Coupez.
In 2019, Mogashoa left her interior design job to follow her passion for fine art. She registered her company, Koranges Art, and currently works from a studio at Ellis House Art Building in Johannesburg.
In the first quarter last year she was invited by the SA State Theatre to hold her first solo series Sheroes Rands, titled Women are the Architects of Society.
Mogashoa said: “The series highlights various prestigious women in South Africa and around the world, including Winnie Mandela, Charlotte Maxeke and Lillian Ngoyi.
“I challenged the audience to think about the absence of women on our banknotes.”
She said she believed that these women deserved more than hospitals and streets being named after them.
“We drive past the street names every day, but we have little to no understanding of who they are, and the size of their achievements.
“My work invites the audience to think and evaluate what they believe and were taught about women.”
Her first big public art event was a live painting competition by Boundless City, to revamp a park in Newtown during Women’s Month in 2019.
In the same month she was appointed by the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History in Pretoria to paint a portrait from life of Ellen Kuzwayo.
The Newtown Worker’s Museum also selected one of her pieces as part of a project by Boundless City, to revamp the Newtown workers’ cottages.
Recently, she was selected as one of the top 25 creatives in South Africa by Business and Arts South Africa from 2021.
Her latest highlight was auctioning her artwork in April last year at the Stephan Welz & Company Emerging South African Artist Auction.
Although she did not have an opportunity to go to art school after completing her matric due to lack of funds, she eventually graduated with a diploma in interior design in 2016 and a BTech honours in the discipline in 2017 from the University of Johannesburg.
Kganya Kay Mogashoa exhibition, Sheroes Rands Herstory, is on display at the State Theatre at 10am daily until March 31, and entrance is free.
Pretoria News