Natalie Paneng

Creating Art

A presentation by 2019 Fak’ugesi Artists in Residence – Natalie Paneng and Nhlakanipho Mashinini. Chaired by Prof J P Wade 

Natalie Paneng- Artist Biography

It’s 2019 and the angry black girl narrative is just one amongst many. She is awkward, complex, and has a quirk to her expression. Residing in Johannesburg and in the cyber village called the Internet. Natalie Paneng is a multi-disciplinary artist who completed a BADA from the University of Witwatersrand. Photography and

videography are her main mediums, the use of these mediums led to the development of her YouTube channel Hello Nice where she uses her skills in theatre and performance to connect to an online audience. Her work has been exhibited at Hazard Gallery through the Bubblegumclub Future 76 Residency in 2018. In 2019 she was part of Design Indaba’s Class of 2019 Emerging Creatives and was also a finalist for Bokeh Film Festivals Emerging Talent Category. Natalie has also participated in an online residency with Floating Reverie. She recently got selected as one of four artists for Fak’ugesi’ 2019 Artist Residency where she exihibited at Bkhz Gallery.

In her work she explores what it means to have an online presence, the persona’s we develop online and how the internet and its algorithms control and influence us. Her videos and art become a way for her to interrogate as well as share how she

manifests and navigates the world she lives in and creates for herself. The internet is MTV and she welcomes you to her crib.

Nhlakanipho Mashinini

Nhlakanipho is a 25 year old architect, graphic designer and creative director. My work usually merges all three fields of expertise to produce work that sets me apart from the rest. It expands the boundaries of architecture and really makes them more artistic. I am an artistic architect who doesn’t really follow the rules of architecture. I come from a very process-driven industry in architecture which allows my work to be a simply provocative package of complex work.

My work has landed me a place in the exhibition, Radical Heritage Baby! in David Krut Projects space  in 2017 before graduating with a Masters in Architecture from University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture. Two years later, I got selected as a Fak’ugesi resident.

The current exploration of my has been focused on repurposing, re-interrogating and repacking pre-existing ideas into an alternative perspective. Any piece that I make adopts architectural rules, architectural tactics or architectural techniques that you may not always find in the art world.