Kylie Wentzel (b. 1993, Durban, South Africa) is a painter inspired by her surrounding environments – both natural and urban – Wentzel’s work revisualises the people, creatures, objects, smells, sounds and scribbles in these spaces. Her naive and intentionally spontaneous style reveals her observations as though they were first shaken together in a lucky packet. The marks, borders, text and graphics that make up her compositions and document her visions, have a sense of raw immediacy – loosely concerned with the line between what is real and what is perceived.
Wentzel majored in New Media at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town where she graduated in 2015. Her desire to tune out of the institutional frequency of thought behind her practice lead her out of the digital realm and into the unfamiliar territory of painting. Wentzel has shown her work locally and internationally in multiple solo shows, group shows and art fairs.
Kylie Wentzel – Curriculum Vitae
Select Solo Exhibitions
2024 STRAY - Kalashnikovv Gallery, Cape Town, RSA
2023 THE BOTANIC GARDENS - Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, RSA
2022 FLEA MARKET – Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, RSA
2021 SALT – Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, RSA
2019 SWEAT – Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, RSA
Select Group Exhibitions
2026 gender/genre, Kumalo | Turpin, Johannesburg, RSA
2023 X - A Decade of Kalashnikovv Gallery - Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg, RSA
2022 Playground - Breach Gallery, Miami, USA
2021 Commune – Kwa-Zulu Natal National Society of Arts, Durban, RSA
2021 The Spectacle – THEFOURTH, Cape Town, RSA
2020 Snakes & Ladders Shad Madhirs Glayering Machine Thousand Island – Kwa-Zulu Natal National Society of Arts, Durban, RSA
2020 Emerging Africa Art Prize Finalist Group Exhibition (Online Exhibition)
Select Fairs
Contemporary Istanbul, Istanbul, TUR: 2023
RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg, RSA: 2026 / 2023
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, RSA: 2026 / 2024 / 2023 / 2022 / 2020
FNB Art Joburg Fair, Johannesburg, RSA: 2026 / 2023 / 2022 / 2020
AKAA Art Fair, Paris, FRA: 2021
AAGA x Artsy ‘African Galleries Now‘ Art Fair (Online): 2021
Design Joburg Collective, Johannesburg, RSA: 2021
Select Collections
Olym Collection, Brussels, BEL