Kagiso Pat Mautloa is a painter and installation artist.  He studied at Mofolo Art Centre in Soweto, where he was brought up, before completing a diploma in fine art at ERC Art Centre in Rorke’s Drift, KwaZulu Natal.  Mautloa currently resides in Alexandra, Johannesburg.

In this urban context, renewal and erosion are the linked and concurrent themes characterising Mautloa's work.  He draws inspiration from urban waste and detritus, the cryptic text of faded posters and billboards, subtle colours bleached by past storms. Working with paint, rusted metal, stained canvas, old window frames, discarded tools, Mautloa restores and reconstructs vanished memories and anecdotes in this process of renewal.  The artist's process of constant reinvention takes place in tandem with the urban renewal programmes of the city. Paradoxically, while the strategy of the city is to demolish to make way for new developments, the artist's renewal is embedded in the city's decay and the detritus left behind by demolition.  In his recontextualisation of collected debris, Mautloa acts as a contemporary historian seeking new truths in the miasma of ruin and decrepitude.
Since 1982 Mautloa has exhibited in many solo exhibitions, group shows and workshops in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Germany, France, Holland, Switzerland, the UK, Ireland, the United States, Cuba and India.  More recent exhibits include a show at the Sasol Works Awards, Johannesburg (2005), Faces to Names at Alliance Francaise, Johannesburg (2006), Shift at Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2007) and Double 07 at Polokwane Art Museum, Limpopo Province.

The artist’s work is housed in public and private collections across South Africa and abroad.

(From 10 years 100 artists, Bell Roberts (biography by David Koloane))

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