IO MAKANDAL

(b. 1987)

Io Makandal is an interdisciplinary artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Working primarily with drawing, photography, organic matter and installation, her practice is concerned with feminist and environmental embodiments of process, entropy, urban ecology, and hybrid environments during a time of environmental shift.

“I am intrigued by how humanised activity on earth creates a binary between nature and society and how this dynamic is continually evolving. I see my work as a fiction of space and place. It illustrates the fluctuation between the environments we create and the supposed natural realm. I am interested in processes, matter, intersectional spaces, hybrid environments, relational realities, pataphysics, autopoiesis and third landscapes in the time of climate change. This working methodology enacts with a greater concern for the meeting of artifice and ‘nature’ in a time of an urgent and emergent need to stay with the trouble. The concept of the garden, how nature is controlled and the construction of landscape are also central themes in my work.”

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021

What is a Weed?, Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery (online), Montreal, Canada

2020

Terra Visions, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2019

Life In the Entropics, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018

Rest, Draw, Rest, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg 

Entanglement, Tomorrow's Today curated by Tumelo Mosaka for Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2017

To Meet The Threshold, No End Contemporary Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa 

Entropy into a Third Landscape, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016

FNB Joburg Art Fair Gallery Solo Projects, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg 

Bonus Space, Nars Foundation, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2015

From Where I was: Part One, a site responsive exchange between Johannesburg and Melbourne in collaboration with Samantha McCulloch, Substation Gallery (Melbourne), Australia and Kalashnikovv Gallery (Johannesburg), South Africa

From Where I was: Part Two / Document, a site responsive exchange between Johannesburg and Melbourne in collaboration with Samantha McCulloch, focusing on viewing an object through different portals, Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg South Africa

From Where I was:Part Three / Circuits, a site responsive intervention, in collaboration with Samantha McCulloch, FNB Joburg Art Fair, South Africa

2011

An Imaginary Solution, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa

ART FAIRS

2020

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2019

Turbine Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018

Turbine Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

Turbine Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Turbine Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2015

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Turbine Art Fair, with Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021

Hello and Goodbye, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2020

Summer Show, Everard Read Gallery, Franschhoek, South Africa

The Takeaways, Stay Home Gallery (online), Texas, USA

Looking forward while looking back, Nars Foundation (online), New York, USA 

The Nonrepresentational, STEVENSON Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2020

STILL, Everard Read (online), Cape Town, South Africa

2020

Us Everard Read (online), Cape Town, South Africa

2019

Summer Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Invisible Exhibition, TMRW Gallery & Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg, South Africa

Rocks, The Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Spaces In Between, TMRW Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018

Penumbra, curated by Wendy Fredrickson, The Old Granary, Cape Town, South Africa

Towards a Sentimental Cartography of Water, curated by Stafan Vicedom, Greatmore Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

Drawn In, TwilSharp Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Villa, curated by Jonathan Freemantle, Johannesburg, South Africa

Winter Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Memento Mori, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

Folly, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

One Colour At A Time: Contemporary Screenprints, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

Snake Eyes,curated by Found Collective, No End Contemporary Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

The House, curated by Samantha McCulloch, Twilsharp Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa

Work/Play, curated by Layla Leiman, Berman Contemporary Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Winter Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Arising African Perspectives, LKB/G, Hamburg, Germany

Capturing State, curated by Prints on Paper, KKNK Festival, Oudtshoorn, South Africa

2016

Material City, curated by Sandile Radebe, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Scramble for Africa, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Berlin, Germany

Authentic Thinkers, curated by Dr Fred Scott, Johannesburg, South Africa

Barclays L'Atelier Top 100, Absa Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

From Whence They Came, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

Enjoyment of the Anti-Sublime,Group exhibition, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Blank Spaces, featuring highlights from the KKNK Festival, ABSA Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

In the midst of things, curated by Maaike Bakker & Jayne Crawshay-Hall, KKNK Festival, Oudtshoorn, South Africa

Travel, curated by Layla Leiman, Johannesburg & Cape Town, South Africa

Prologue, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Fifteen Hundred, NO END Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Sketch, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2015

No End To This, NO END Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Cross Sections, curated by Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Death of the Old, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

On The Back Of His Words, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa

Open Studio Featured Artist, Assemblage Studios, Newtown Johannesburg, South Africa

2013

Conditions, White River Gallery, Nelspruit, South Africa

Beggin’ For Change, CUBE-ROUTE, an Open Drawer Project initiative, in association with Evilson, Cape Town, South Africa 

2011

Part 1: The Drawing Room, Spin Space Gallery,  an Open Drawer Project initiative, VANSA Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

2010

The Science of Imaginary Solutions, graduate exhibition, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa

2009

OnTopOfTheWorld, curated by Andre Vorster, Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa

RESIDENCIES

2018 Transparency: Residency for Self-education on Privilege & Socio-political Heritage in The Contemporary Art World, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Weissensee, Berlin, Germany

2016 International Residency, NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2015 CC Joburg 1 hour residency, Ithuba Gallery, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa 

72 Hour JAM, a nonstop 72 hour workshop project conducted by Nottingham Trent University, Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2014 Transform Today, Absolut Res, Absolut, Johannesburg, South Africa

2012 Horizons, 24 hour suburban residency, an Open Drawer Projects initiative, Sober and Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art, Johannesburg, South Africa

PROJECTS, COMMISSIONS & PUBLIC SITE INTERVENTIONS

2020 Without Water There Are No Flowers, public art mural commissioned by the Royal Danish Embassy, Pretoria Central, South Africa

2014 Ratio, Public Sculpture commissioned by Group Five

See Me Pole. A site intervention by a thoroughfare near Mai Mai Market, Jeppestown, Johannesburg. The intervention intended to make motorists more aware of the space they passed through as the site is known for pedestrians dangerously crossing the road.

“what would you do in 5 x 2.5 sqm... if there was no car?”. A temporary site intervention on Pritchard street in Banking City, Johannesburg, considered the debates around how public open spaces are currently used in the inner city and how it could possibly be used in alternative recreational ways without the car

2013 Cube-Route, a mobile gallery across South Africa from Nelspruit to Cape Town. An Open Drawer Projects initiative

EDUCATION

2018 MA Candidate Wits School Of Art, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011 Post Graduate Business Acumen for Artists Diplom, Graduate School of Business University of Cape Town, South Africa

2010 Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town 

2007 Curatorship course conducted by Linda Stupart, African Studies Centre, University of Cape Town, South Africa