Treasure Mlima (b. 1999 - Durban, RSA) is a self-taught South African artist. Mlima’s works are composed of 2D prints, showcasing an array of imagery dealing with space and identity from an African perspective. Technically his artistic process includes the use of found images that are digitally manipulated into collages, then carved into wood and eventually painted with oil-based and acrylic inks. Mlima sees himself as a sample of a type of existence in the world that is African. As an artist he commits himself to being a cultural practitioner who has the duty to expose what is hidden.
Through his art, he both reveals the existing and suggests a different reality using neutral symbolism, neither confrontational nor compromising.approaches consciousness as a bodily experience rather than a fixed idea. His work isolates the quiet moments when the body performs, and records the strain that history and colonial structures leave on the self. Drawing on Frantz Fanon's writing on psychological displacement and the internalised white mask, he asks what it takes to name the world and to belong without the exhaustion of spectacle.
Through slow, rhythmic carving, Mlima develops a formal language that values emergence over resolution and improvisation over polish. After a career spent studying the body, he now presents it as evidence: a physical record of internalised performance and institutional conditioning.
Treasure Mlima – Curriculum Vitae
Select Solo Exhibitions
2026 Reflections, kumalo | turpin, Johannesburg, South Africa
2025 Hueman Experience, Hue Café, Durban, South Africa
2023 The Search for a Face, Africa First x Gordon Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Select Group Exhibitions
2025 The Future in Motion,Cape Racing x Art School Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
2025 Senzeni Marasela x Imba Ya Sarai Gallery – Studio Show, Johannesburg, South Africa
2025 SouthSeen Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
2025 Real Myths, Beit Kandinof, Serge Tiroche Contemporary, Tel-Aviv, Israel
2025 Africa Rising, ACEL x Serge Tiroche Contemporary, Seoul, South Korea
2025 Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees Benefit Auction, Cape Town, South Africa
2024 Serge Tiroche Contemporary x Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
2024 The Hive Project-Pop Up, Serge Tiroche Contemporary, Tel Aviv, Israel
2024 Voices of The Future, Art School Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
2024 Isenzo Sak’dala, Reservoir Gallery x FEDE Arthouse, Cape Town, South Africa
2024 Motions and Motives, DARLO x BNAP Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa
2023 Southern Soul, Artyli Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 Against All Odds, Imba Ya Sarai Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 Grand Rising, MmArt House x BNAP Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 Imba Ya Sarai Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Select Fairs
Fresh Paint Art Fair, Tel Aviv, ISR: 2023
RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg, RSA: 2026 / 2023
FNB Art Joburg: 2026
Select Collections
Serge Tiroche Contemporary Collection
Johannesburg Stock Exchange Collection
Select Awards
2026 ABSA L’Atelier Finalist
2023 Blessing Ngobeni Art Prize Finalist
2023 Cassier Welz Award Finalist