BRONWYN KATZ
BRONWYN KATZ
Bronwyn Katz’s artistic practice is an evolving system of notation, an effort to articulate the phonetics of an imagined creole language. This speculative language acts as both a cultural and linguistic reclamation, drawing from fragmentary histories and oral traditions that have long resisted inscription within dominant archival systems. Engaging with the concept of land as a living repository of memory and trauma, her work reflects on space as lived experience, considering the land’s capacity to remember, carry and communicate the traces of its occupation.
Through her encoding of existing and imagined phonemes and ritual forms into sculpture and installation, Katz proposes alternative systems of memory and knowledge. Her practice resists the erasure wrought by colonial histories and instead forges new paths for the preservation and interpretation of communal memory. These material codes—lines, shapes, textures—create a language beyond text, one rooted in the body, the land, and shared experience.
Katz’s work contributes to a vital reimagining of the South African archive. She asserts the value of diverse expressive forms including the sonic, the visual, and the material as vehicles for excavating suppressed histories and reanimating what has been deemed lost. Katz invites viewers into a space where language is fluid, history is embodied, and meaning is made through the interplay of sound, matter and memory.
Recent solo exhibitions include stone's embrace, a love spiral of erosion and renewal, Stevenson, Johannesburg (2024); Tus tsĩ ǀxurub, Rain and drought, MASSIMODECARLO, Paris (2023); Kaeen-de-haree, Lively sunshine, Andrew Kreps, New York (2023); I turn myself into a star and visit my loved ones in the sky, White Cube, London (2021) and A Silent Line, Lives Here, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2018).
Katz has featured in group exhibitions including Arte Povera - A New Chapter, Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Espoo, Finland (2025); We, The People: 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa (2025); A Living Collection, The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom (2024); Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics, The Institutum Singapore, Singapore (2024); Eco Spheres, Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa (2024); SIGHTLINES on Peace, Power & Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa, Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York (2023); The Milk of Dreams, the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2022); Soft Water, Hard Stone, the New Museum Triennial, New York (2021); The Future Generation Art Prize exhibition, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv (2021); NIRIN, 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); Là où les eaux se mêlent, the 15th Biennale de Lyon (2019) and Material Insanity, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech (2019).
Katz is a founding member of iQhiya, an 11-women artist collective which has performed across various spaces, including Documenta 14 (in Kassel and Athens).
Katz was born in 1993 in Kimberley, South Africa. She lives and work in Cape Town.