On Saturday 23 August 2025 the Johannesburg Art Gallery, in collaboration with First Floor Gallery Harare will open Sugar Coats by Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude. His first solo exhibition at the museum, Sugar Coats forms a part of his win as the 2024 FNB Art Prize winner.
As the leading art prize connected to the continent’s longest running contemporary African art fair, the FNB Art Prize was established to recognise and support exceptional artistic talent from Africa and its diaspora. Each year, it provides the winning artist with the platform to stage a solo exhibition of ambitious scale. Previous recipients include Cedric Nunn, Kudzanai Chiurai, Nelisiwe Xaba and Mocke J Van Veuren, Portia Zvavahera, Turiya Magadlela, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Peju Alatise, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Bronwyn Katz, Lady Skollie, Wycliffe Mundopa, Dada Khanyisa, and Lindokuhle Sobekwa, whose practices have shaped contemporary art discourse on the continent and internationally.
For Nyaude, the opportunity to present Sugar Coats at the Johannesburg Art Gallery carries particular weight. As the institution housing the largest public collection of art on the African continent, JAG situates his work within a lineage of historic and contemporary voices. “It affirms the significance of my practice not only within Zimbabwean and regional contexts but also within the broader canon of African and global art history.” He says.
Nyaude’s practice has long grappled with the complexities of power, identity and survival in urban Zimbabwe. Through his evolving visual vocabulary, everyday objects—chairs, feet, laughing mouths, sneakers—become metaphors for authority, resistance, aspiration and disillusionment. Sugar Coats continues this exploration, confronting disempowerment and the residue of colonial systems that still define much of daily life. Sparkling canvases mimic the allure of consumer culture, yet beneath the surface they reveal fragile economies, precarious choices and the weight of compromise.
Born in Mbare, Harare in 1988, Nyaude grew up in a township shaped by political struggle and artistic exchange. His decision to pursue art professionally was influenced by Wycliffe Mundopa, a fellow painter and former FNB Art Prize laureate. Over the past fifteen years, Nyaude has developed a practice marked by conviction and integrity, earning international recognition from institutions such as the New Museum Triennial (2018) and the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.
His work refuses easy binaries, instead holding together the humorous and the tragic, the personal and the political. With Sugar Coats, Nyaude delivers a body of work at once satirical and compassionate, a reflection on what it means to hustle, to endure, and to reimagine possibility under the weight of systemic constraint.
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Klein and King George Streets Joubert Park open Tuesdays to Sundays 10:00am to 5:00pm.
About the FNB Art Prize
The FNB Art Prize is awarded annually to an artist who demonstrates outstanding practice and vision. It exists to affirm the role of contemporary art as a force for cultural and social engagement, while offering artists the resources and visibility to expand their reach. By situating the prize exhibition within a major institution such as the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the award ensures that African artists are celebrated within spaces of global significance.
About FNB Art Joburg
Based in Johannesburg, FNB Art Joburg is the leading and longest running contemporary African art fair on the continent. For the last 17 years, it has played an instrumental role in developing and sustaining a commercial industry that centres African and diasporic practitioners. The 18th edition of FNB Art Joburg will take place from 5 – 7 September 2025.
Get your tickets to FNB Art Joburg at the Sandton Convention Centre here: https://tickets.tixsa.co.za/
For the latest information, visit artjoburg.com or follow @fnbartjoburg on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.