The awards evening of the Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards took place on the 20^th of September at the Coen Scholtz Recreation Centre in the City of Ekurhuleni. University of Pretoria Fine Art students, Leandré le Roux who is currently a Masters student and Izak Buys were amongst the four merit award winners. Izak Buys, becoming a two-time award winner has also won an additional award of the Lizamore and Associates Mentorship Programme Solo Exhibition for his work titled, Run.

Run deals with drawing parallels between narratives throughout history – in this case juxtaposing the Sharpville Massacre with the Marikana Massacre. For Buys, the medium of burning into wood echoes the violent events that have been burnt into the landscape of South Africa. Le Roux’s work titled, Arrythmic Chronic Flow, concerns history as a series of interlinked events which is perpetually moving forward, but not necessarily towards a telos or ultimate goal.

As the winners of the Merit awards, Buys and le Roux each received prize money of R7500. Currently in its 27^th consecutive year, the Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards is proudly hosted by The City of Ekurhuleni in a first time collaboration with the Lizamore & Associates Mentorship Programme. The competition caters for artists of all ages, producing various media of art works. Amongst the Pretoria finalists for the Top 100 works are current and former BA Fine Arts students of the University of Pretoria, namely: Elsabe Viljoen, Shenaz Mahomed, Leandré le Roux, Izak Buys, Thelma Van Rensburg, Odette Graskie, Marli Steyl and Allen Laing, who was also part of the Top 15.

The exhibition of the Top 100 art works will be open free of charge for public viewing from 21 September to 12 October between 10:00 and 17:00 at the Coen Scholtz Recreation Centre in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg.

For any enquiries about the artists or art works on show at the Coen Scholts Recreation Centre contact Maria Gule at [email protected]  or 011 999 4286/391 4006