Ceysson & Bénétière

Stephané Edith Conradie (b. 1990 Namibia) is a lecturer in printmedia at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Although primarily a trained printmaker, she is known for her bricolage assemblages. She is currently a PhD candidate in Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, where she completed her MA in Visual Arts (Art Education) and her BA in Visual Arts (Fine Arts). Her research work focuses on trying to make sense of her social and cultural ‘situatedness’, in a South African context. Her research stems from a fascination with how people categorise and arrange objects in their homes, particularly her own family members in both Namibia and South Africa. Conradie creates ornate sculptures of entangled objects, inspired by home décor found in lower and working class homes in South Africa. Though seemingly only used for aesthetic purposes or seen as common place, Conradie suggests that they could provide an important lens through which to examine value placement and meaning-making. Her work examines the histories of colonialism and creolisation embedded in domestic material culture, calling into question how identity is encoded in the private domain. These objects have provided her with a language to investigate the creolised formations of identity that are linked to South Africa’s histories of colonialism, slavery, segregation and apartheid.

Creolisation directs our attention towards the cultural phenomena and material culture that result from displacement and the ongoing dynamic interchange of symbols and practices, eventually leading to new forms with varying degrees of stability.

Solo Exhibitions 

2019

Domestic Lives, Nomadic Belongings, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa

2017

Ordentilikheid : a creolised object, Pop-up exhibition, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa

Group Exhibitions 

2023

FIND/FUSE, Curated by Maëlle Ebelle and Francesca Pessarelli, Ceysson & Bénétière, New York, USA

2022

Home Strange Home at WITW x Krone - Krone x WHATIFTHEWORLD, Tulbagh, 

South Africa

The vibration of things, The 15th edition of the Triennial of Small Sculpture, Fellbach, Germany

(IM)MATERIALITY, Águeda Arts Center, Portugal

The Phoenix Runway, WHATIFTHEWORLD, curated by Reservoir, Cape Town, 

South Africa

2021 

Falling awake, The Fourth, curated by Reservoir, Cape Town, South Africa

40 under 40, Krone x WHATIFTHEWORLD, Tulbagh, South Africa

Circle: AVA 50 Collectors, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa

Between strangers, Nuweland, Oosterzeee-Buren, The Netherlands 

Black Luminosity, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2020

SHAPING THINGS: An exploration of clay and ceramics in contemporary South 

African art practice, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Materiality, Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Megalo International Print Prize 2020, Kingston, Australia

2019

Sans, Open24hours Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Unresolved Category, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa

Forward? Forward! Forward…, Stellenbosch University Museum, 

Stellenbosch, South Africa

2018

Kwaai, Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

Transmissions, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa

Cape to Tehran, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

Redemptive Beauty, Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

SS17, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa

2016

30 x 30 under 30, Group Exhibition, Rust en Vrede Gallery, Durbanville, Cape Town, 

South Africa

Mexico Exchange Exhibition, Rust en Vrede Gallery, Durbanville, Cape Town, 

South Africa

Sasol New Signature Finalist Exhibition, Pretoria, Afrique du Sud

2015 

Steller, Group Exhibition, Salon91, Cape Town , South Africa

Narratives Group Exhibition, Rust en Vrede Gallery, Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa

Barcleys L’atelier Regional Exhibition, Rust en Vrede Art Gallery, Durbanville, Cape Town, 

South Africa

Barcleys L’atelier National Exhibition, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2014

Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Greatest Hits, Cape Town, South Africa

Divergence, The Keith Dietrich Award Exhibition, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Music and Lyrics Group Exhibition, Rust en Vrede Gallery, Durbanville, Cape Town, 

South Africa

Familiar Group Exhibition (co-curated), Swains Yard Studios, Observatory, Cape Town, 

South Africa

Golden Haze Group Exhibition, Salon91, Cape Town, South Africa

2013

ABSA L’atelier Regional Exhibition, ArtB Gallery, Bellville Cape Town, South Africa

Pentimenti and more Group Exhibition, ArtB Gallery, Bellville Cape Town, South Africa

ASBA L’atelier National Exhibition, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Sasol New Signature Finalist Exhibition, Pretoria, South Africa

Pre/Pri Stellenbosch and Wits University Collaborative Print Exhibition and Portfolio box, South Africa

Publications

2021

Tise, E. Conradie, S.E. Seyffert-Wirth, M. 2021. Preserving knowledge: The Stellenbosch University Library visual redress journey. 

In Fataar, A and Costandius, E. (Ed). 2021. Evoking Transformation: Visual Redress at Stellenbosch University. SunMedia. Stellenbosch

2018

Stephané E. Conradie. 2018. Coloured Cabinets: A Reflection on Material Culture as a Marker of Coloured Identity in Cloetesville, 

South Africa, African Historical Review, 49:2, 1-21, DOI: 10.1080/17532523.2018.1423763

2017

The Storming: Insurrections III. SAHO. Sun Media, Stellenbosch. Illustrated, S. E. Conradie. Biscombe, M., Conradie, S. E., Costandius, E & Alexander, N. 2017. Investigating “othering” in Visual Arts spaces of learning.Education as change, 1-18 [Online].