Mellaney Roberts

Mellany is a contemporary ceramicist who engages with the ceramic art medium to evoke the permanence and impermanence associated with time. Through her art, she explores how Coloured, as a racial identity in South Africa, is defined as a racially mixed and hybrid community.

Born in Willowmore, a small town in the Eastern Cape, Mellany completed her National Diploma in Fine Arts (2010), BTech Fine Arts in Ceramics (2011), and Masters of Fine Art in Ceramics (2017), all at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Gqeberha. She’s currently reading towards her PhD in Fine and Studio Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology, Tshwane, where she is also a lecturer. She has been a finalist in the Sasol New Signatures competition (2012), Absa L’Atelier, 2012 and 2013 and recently the Top 20 Finalist for the Ekurhuleni Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards (2021).

Robyn Munnick

Robyn Munnick works mainly at creating mixed media installations. She’s fascinated by the possibilities of the art-making processes in assisting with the process of dealing with the trauma caused by the possibility of losing a family member to terminal illness. 

Robyn still lives and works in Gqeberha, her town of birth. In 2019 she obtained her Masters Degree in Fine Art (cum laude) at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. She has been a finalist in the Sasol New Signatures Art Competition from 2014 through to 2019 and is head of the painting department at Rhodes University.

She says her artworks aim to build on an exploration of various materials and modes used to underpin the objectives in what she aims at visually communicating.

Tharien Smith

Tharien Smith is an artist working with a variety of media, including photography, digital collage, acrylic paint and textiles. Fascinated with nature, archaeology, human anatomy, perspective and chiaroscuro (contrasting light and shadows), she loves to experiment and explore new techniques.

In her latest bodies of work, she is interested in women, celebrating the female form and its sensuality, sexuality and complexity.

Born in the Free State, schooled in Johannesburg and having studied and lived in Pretoria for 23 years, Tharien now lives and works in Cape Town. She obtained a National Diploma in Textiles from Tshwane University of Technology (1995) and has spent most of her career working in various creative and corporate environments designing furnishing fabrics to ceramic tiles.

Patrick Bongoy – 2023 artist mentor

Sculptor Patrick Bongoy is no stranger to Nando’s, as his artworks are included in our collection and displayed in Nando’s restaurants in South Africa and the UK.

Born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1980, Patrick studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa and fled to South Africa in 2013 after he was involved in a politically provocative protest piece. Currently based in Cape Town, his work addresses issues around migration, economic exploitation and environmental degradation.

Bongoy works predominantly with waste materials such as inner tubes from vehicle tyres, industrial packaging, hessian sacking and textiles. He cuts and weaves these together to create complex, layered sculptures and three-dimensional reliefs. His painstaking process draws on traditional basket-making skills while referencing the physical labour that defines day-to-day life in the DRC.