(b. 1991, Limpopo, South Africa

Art is in painter Fumani Maluleke’s veins. Born and raised in the Limpopo village of Thomo, as a youngster he would fill schoolbook margins with drawings and drive his mother mad by sketching on walls. As an adult, the quest to create led him to hone his craft at Johannesburg’s famed Artist Proof Studio. He also completed a diploma in art and graphic design from Tshwane North TVET College and began teaching high school art.

Maluleke’s decision to concentrate on his painting career fulltime dovetailed with the development of an innovative new body of work. He began rendering his sensitive paintings of rural scenes and landscapes onto traditional grass mats. These works are an acknowledgement of these important, but often overlooked, cultural items – the multipurpose woven mats used in so many South African homes. They are also a continued love letter to the artist’s home and background. The beautifully rendered pastoral scenes he creates are universally understandable, but nevertheless have an anthropological approach and document rural South African life and Maluleke’s experiences of this rich realm.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2024 CIRCA gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Turbine Art Fair, Sandton, South Africa

2018 Joy Alive Art gallery, Soweto, South Africa

2018 Springs Art Gallery, Ekurhuleni, South Africa

2017 John West Art Galleries, Pretoria, South Africa

2017 Tintswalo Safari, Mpumalanga, South Africa

2016 Savannah Mall, Limpopo, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 Art on 6th, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Lizamore & Associates, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Artyli Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Inner City Views, Sanlam Private Wealth, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Candice Berman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Artyli Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2023 Graham Modern & Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022 Modernity and its offsprings, Asisebenze Art Atelier, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022 Asisebenze Art Atelier booth, Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018 John West Art Galleries, Pretoria, South Africa

2018 Golden, Art Impact International, Washington DC, USA

2018 Julie Miller African Contemporary Art winter exhibition, Midrand, South Africa

2015 Uncovered, Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg, South Africa

2014 Wang' Thola Collective, FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa

2014 SAADA Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa

COMMISSIONS

2017 Rand Merchant Bank

2016 Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital

2015 Rand Merchant Bank

2014 Rand Merchant Bank