Ep.15 Justice Mukheli

JUSTICE MUKHELI

Justice Mukheli is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born and raised in Soweto. Mukheli found early creative expression through street art and music. Later, through his work as a creative director in advertising, he crafted the foundation for what would become his fine art photography. He co-founded the internationally successful photography collective I See A Different You.

Following on from this, he established himself individually working both commercially and creatively as a photographer. Alongside he developed into a film and advertising director. Seeking new ways of expression when the pandemic curtailed physical interactions, Mukheli explored self- portraiture in photography. This led him to further explorations and expressions through painting, drawing and collage.

At present, he works in all mediums; layering the processes to attain his vision, his feeling. In making work, Mukheli taps into his lived experiences and how these have shaped him. He taps into the resources he has acquired in response to these experiences. He draws from growth and connection to himself and his community. He uses his art-making process as a tool for questioning and processing his beliefs and ideas that are stored in the subconscious.

Making art offers him a safe space in which to be curious and explore outside of the structures that society has placed on being, while black and male. Here he moves freely through themes of race, gender, sexuality, love, hope and innocence. Mukheli continues to learn and grow in both his practice and in his way of being. These two processes interweave in a way that consistently inspires him to go deeper and lead with curiosity and vulnerability.

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Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Images and text supplied by Justice Mukheli.