Sandile Radebe
Artist | Researcher
Isintu as a generative method for making contemporary art.
I approach isintu as a generative method for making contemporary art, drawing from isiZulu material culture, language, and lived experience to produce new forms, spatial imaginaries, and ways of knowing.
Based in Johannesburg, my practice spans sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, and public intervention. I work with isintu as a living and relational mode of existence through which knowledge, material practice, and artistic form continue to be generated
Selected recent work
Mnandi Madzeni, 2026. Spray painted mild steel . 7 200 x 1 740 x 800 mm. 850 kg’s in weight (estimate). Hyde Park
Commissioned through Guns and Rain Gallery
A site-specific sculpture drawing from Isibheqe Sonhlamvu and izimpawu zesintu. The work explores how meaning can remain open, allowing interpretation, speculation, and lived experience to participate in the formation of meaning.
Mcijo Qondile II, 2026. Painted mild steel 2100 × 1000 × 1000 mm
Hyde Park
Commissioned through Guns and Rain Gallery
Structured around umcijo, a triangular motif found on isiZulu beer vessels, the work continues an exploration of isiZulu practices as a methodology for contemporary art-making.
Amabheqe emihla ngemihla
2023
Mixed-media installation
Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town
Bringing amasumpa motifs into dialogue with contemporary newspapers, the installation considers how Indigenous and contemporary knowledge systems might encounter one another and generate new associations.