Sandile Radebe is a multidisciplinary artist based in Johannesburg whose practice spans drawing, painting, installation, and sculpture. His work interrogates isintu (indigeneity) as a methodology for contemporary art, positioning it as a framework to generate new imaginaries. Engaging with isiZulu material culture as an epistemic tool, Radebe seeks to disentangle from colonial legacies, envision an equitable world, and pluralise knowledge systems.

A central focus of his practice is the appropriation and reinterpretation of isiZulu petroglyphs, known as amabheqe. Traditionally used as logographic devices, these symbols encode knowledge and facilitate communication across individual, community, and spiritual realms. By distilling their inherent logic, Radebe activates amabheqe as dynamic, evolving signifiers that generate meaning beyond their historical framing as ethnographic artefacts.

Radebe’s work exists at the intersection of traditional knowledge and contemporary practice. By examining the material symbolism and functionality of amabheqe, he creates spaces to recontextualise them beyond their role in ritual or utility. Through gallery and public space interventions, Radebe invites a re-reading of these symbols, situating them within an urbanised and modernised isiZulu experience. His practice challenges dominant knowledge systems and reclaims indigenous semiotics as tools for artistic intervention, spatial negotiation, and cultural continuity.

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^{Spier Light Art 2022}

^{Umoya magazine AFRE}

_{Poetic Land Art}

_{^{The Shed}}

_{Visi Magazine}

^{S-Bend Mural commission}