Portra 2023 (framed)

Acrylic, aerosol spray and marker on Fabriano paper

55cm by 1m

Kilmany-Jo Liversage (b. 1973) lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa

She creates portraits that sit at the blurry boundary between fine art and urban art

Adopting the urban art language allows her to update, renew and challenge the conventions of painting, though her rendering of female subjects are inspired by Renaissance era portraiture

It also references digitised mass production and a futuristic post-human world

The result is a series of brightly coloured large-scale paintings, evoking the street, art history and the future

Although Liversage has painted walls all over the world, including a large-scale mural at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, she does not consider herself a street artist

Operating within the framework of ‘urban contemporary’, Liversage may have incorporated aspects of street art into her practice – considerable scale, a predilection for working outside and the custom of tagging - but she trained as a fine artist and painting is her committed pursuit

She is a dedicated fine art painter

She is faithful to Renaissance standards of portraiture, working within the established canon, taking into account the very same compositional considerations as da Vinci or Piero della Francesca

BUT, she breaks the mould, allowing for spontaneity of mark-making, for dripping and for glorious, generative chaos

She is the anarchist who comes to mess with the process, revealing in her rebellion the truth of the matter – the uselessness and the peril, for women, of colouring within the patriarchal lines

In Liversage’s work, the masculine Gaze, to which all feminine is subject within a patriarchal framework, is plain to see

However, revealed as self-portraits, the feminine, cast in the roles given to her by the Gaze, stares knowingly, ferociously, straight back

Few artists can capture a moment or an expression as confidently as Kilmany-Jo Liversage does

On top of that, each painting is an act of rebellion

There is the classic and "correct" represented by the classical portrait elements, and then there is her saying that the status quo needs to change or be better and that those who traditionally had not been respected or valued are equally important and relevant

This is expressed by her use of a hip-hop aesthetic

Her ability in combining the two elements into one powerful artwork makes that statement

About her still life paintings, she has the following to say; “I paint flowers as a reference to objectification

With hints of female anatomy and subversive organic shapes created by the spray can and paintbrush, I have created an urban take on the classical still-life painting”

Education:

• 1994 H.Dip Fine Arts

Free State Technikon

Received a distinction in Painting

• 1997 B.Tech Fine Arts, Free State Technikon

Special honours and awards:

• 2000 SASOL New Signatures Art Competition (Best Painting)

• 2005 UNESCO Aschberg Bursary, Paris France

• 2013 Back 2 back to Biennale

55th Venice Biennale

• 2018 SCOPE Art Show, Miami

Museum exhibitions:

2026- PREKARIA

Oliewenhuis Museum

Bloemfontein

2023 If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future, African American Museum, Dallas

USA

Artist residencies:

• 2005 UNESCO Aschberg-Medellin, Colombia, South America

Collections:

• Global Nando’s collection

• Spier Arts Collection

• Department of Science and Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

• Absa Bank Art Collection, South Africa

• Centro Colombo Americano

Paul Bardwell Contemporary Gallery of Modern Art – Medellin, South America

• Comfandi Centre-Cali, Colombia

• Rand Merchant Bank permanent collection, South Africa

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

• 2026-AURA

Everard Read Gallery

London

• 2025-PREKARIA

Oliewenhuis Museum

Bloemfontein

• 2025-PREKARIA

WORLDART Gallery

Cape Town

• 2024 WORLDART Gallery

• 2023 REVOL

WORLDART, Cape Town

• 2023 ILLUMINA

Everard Read, London

• 2021 FERVA, WORLDART

Cape Town

• 2019 FEMFLEKTA619

WORLDART & AVA Gallery, Cape Town

• 2018 16 Days of Activism

WORLDART, Cape Town

• 2018 Chroma718

Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg

• 2016 Orda716

WORLDART, Cape Town

• 2016 Orda716

Lizamore & Associates

• 2015 Ordamental515

Hay Hill Gallery, London

• 2014 Obversa714

WORLDART, Cape Town

• 2014 Obversa714

Lizamore & Associates

• 2012 Portra

Source 53, Singapore

• 2012 Portra

Artspace gallery, Johannesburg

• 2012 Portra

WORLDART, Cape Town

• 2011 Moniker

WORLDART, Cape Town

• 2010 Orda 2010

Erdmann Contemporary

• 2006 Orda 2006

Blank Projects, Cape Town

Selected Group Exhibitions:

• 2024-22.55S

Kalashnikov Gallery

Cape Town

• 2024 INNER SANCTUM-Everard Read Gallery Johannesburg

• 2023 If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future, African American Museum, Dallas

USA

• Convention

Word of Art, Woodstock, Cape Town

• 2010 Creative Context: A Group Show by Contemporary African Fine Artists Singapore

• 2010 World Aids Congress

Vienna, Brussels

• 2010 Matters Conceptually

Erdmann Gallery, Cape Town

• 2005 Graffiti is Public Art

Jardin Botanical Garden, Medellin, Colombia

• 2004 Spier Outdoor Sculpture Biennale 2004

Stellenbosch, Cape Town

Art fairs:

• 2024 RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg

• 2024 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2023 RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg

• 2023 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2022 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2021 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2020 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2019 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2019 Sydney Contemporary, Sydney

• 2018 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2018 Stroke Art Fair, Munich

• 2018 Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg

• 2017 SCOPE Art Fair, Miami

• 2017 MONIKER Art Fair, London

• 2017 Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2017 Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg

• 2016 THAT Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2016 MONIKER Art Fair, London

• 2016 Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2016 Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg

• 2015 MONIKER Art Fair, London

• 2015 Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2014 Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

• 2013 Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town

CONTACT DETAILS:

Auctioneer: African Tails

Contact No: +27 (0) 21 510 7360

Email: [email protected]