This year the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum has re-launched the Eastern Cape’s most prestigious art competition, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum Biennial as a curated visual arts show. Art professionals from across South Africa were invited to participate in this important visual arts event by nominating artists they felt had significantly contributed to the Eastern Cape art scene. 30 artists have been selected from nominations received to participate in this celebration of Eastern Cape artistic excellence. Selected Artists will be invited to submit one artwork for the Biennial exhibition which will open on 23 October 2014.

As in previous years, the Biennial exhibition is open to artists who reside and work in the Eastern Cape. This year artists who are alumni of accredited tertiary institutions based in the Eastern Cape, but who now reside elsewhere in South Africa, were also accepted.

The Biennial Exhibition was born out of the desire to foster local talent and artistic excellence and to present a noteworthy contemporary exhibition of Eastern Cape art. The NMM Art Museum launched the Biennial in 2006 as part of this commitment and since then has helped to promoted thirty-five top established artists and new signatures through three group exhibitions and four outstanding solo award exhibitions.

This year’s nominations were received from around South Africa and adjudicated by a committee of local art professionals. The selection committee comprised: Dr Melanie Hillebrand (Director, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum), Uthando Baduza, (Artist, Curator and FET Researcher at CIPSET at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), Mary Duker (Acting Dean, Faculty of Arts, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), Gregory Kerr (Director, Greg Kerr Fine art) and Jeanne Wright (artist and fine art journalist).

The NMM Art Museum is once again looking forward to producing an exhibition of outstanding Eastern Cape art. The Biennial exhibition will run until 25 January 2015.

The selected artists are:

Dorothy Barnes, Cleone Cull, Maureen de Jager, Beverly de Lange, Christine Dixie, Derrick Erasmus, Charmaine Haines, Anthony Harris, Nic Hauser, Lydia Holmes, Tim Hopwood, Christiaan Kritzinger, Alhyrian Laue, Carla Leisching, Nomusa Makhubu, Brent Meistre, Nigel Mullins, Siyabonga Ngaki, Susan Opperman, Jennifer Ord, Monique Pelser, Tanya Poole, Marc Pradervand, Stephen Rosin, Dolla Sapeta, Zack Taljaard, Johnathan van der Walt and Rat Western.

The NMM Art Museum is situated at 1 Park Drive, Central.