Works | INVESTEC CAPE TOWN

For its return to the fair, AFIKARIS brings together four artists who are profoundly attentive to their environments, transforming the act of observation into an emotional, even meditative, experience. Each artist urges us to notice what we may have overlooked. Through vibrant, expressive visual languages, they illuminate themes that carry historical, political, and spiritual weight. Prompting us not only to see, but to listen, reflect, and remember.

Jean-David Nkot’s almost hyperrealist paintings draw attention to the ongoing exploitation of labor in the Global South, particularly in agricultural industries like cocoa farming. Through meticulous detail, from the folds of a worker’s clothing to the moss on cocoa trees, Nkot places the viewer face-to-face with the lived realities of laborers in Cameroon. In the background, black-and-white archival imagery subtly ties today's extractive practices to their colonial origins, revealing a continuum of exploitation that persists under the guise of globalization.

Boluwatife Oyediran explores the emotional and spiritual journey of African immigrants in the United States. His concept of Inverted Blackness reimagines Black identity through ethereal, blue-toned portraits that appear to glow from within. These figures are occupying a liminal space between histories, cultures, and geographies. Oyediran invites us to listen to the quiet struggles and profound resilience that migration demands, repositioning Black identity in conversation with religion, history, and Western art.

Elolo Bosoka offers a more tactile form of listening, one rooted in community, materiality, and the poetry of the everyday. His works, often composed of found and discarded objects, become quiet monuments to exchange and reinvention. By giving new life to mundane materials and common forms, he uncovers the silent economies embedded in daily life. Bosoka’s practice celebrates connection - between people, materials, and systems, and reminds us that transformation often begins in overlooked places.

Hervé Yamguen draws on a deep current of consciousness, inviting viewers to look beyond the tangible and toward wider spheres of existence. His bronze sculptures, populated by hybrid beings that merge human, animal, and plant forms, embody metamorphosis and interconnectedness. They symbolize a vital communion between all living things, celebrating the fluid boundaries of existence. Yamguen’s work is a quiet call to wonder, a contemplative space that reveals not only the fragility but also the strength and beauty of being alive.

Together, these four artists ask us to slow down, to listen closely, and to see differently.

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Investec Cape Town
AFIKARIS, booth C3

Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC)

1 Lower Long Street

DATES AND TIMES

VIP OPENING RECEPTION
6 – 9 PM | Thursday, 19 February

PUBLIC OPENING HOURS
12 – 7 PM | Friday, 20 February

11 – 7 PM | Saturday, 21 February

11 – 7 PM | Sunday, 22 February

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Elolo Bosoka