Mohau Moholane

Mohau Moholane was born in Makweng, Limpopo, and raised by their grandmother, which made community and the weight of memory central to their work. They moved to Johannesburg in primary school, studied visual arts at school and art and design in Pretoria, then took up printmaking at Artist Proof Studio during the Covid-19 pandemic.

They were named a Design Indaba Emerging Creative in 2022 and were a winner of the 2024 Constitutional Court Art Collection Student Competition. That same year they travelled with a group from Artist Proof Studio to Fallo, Italy, to make a mural for the late Gianni Mariano.

Mohau uses portraiture to look past appearance and into the relationships and environments that shape us, touching on Black masculinity, mental health, memory and the pressures of everyday life in South Africa.

Stories (yellow) is a series of four lithographs made from a family gathering back home, showing their uncles and grandfather in their natural expressions. It is about the stories told when people come together, and the belonging that grows from them. The yellow is deliberate: they link it to logical thinking and recall, the colour of sticky notes and highlighters.