Artist Profile
Mandlenkosi Mavengere
Zimbabwean artist
Mandlenkosi Mavengere, born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, is an artist whose work blends printmaking and painting. After completing his O'levels in Zimbabwe, he moved to South Africa to pursue a career in art, enrolling in Artist Proof Studio's printmaking course. His art often addresses migration and labor issues, using banknote imagery—particularly etchings and linocuts—as a framework to explore socio-economic disparities and population displacement. The repetitive patterns and directional lines in his work symbolize the movement and struggles of migrants, while his painted portraits on banknotes represent economically fabricated identities of those seeking better opportunities. His use of fabric (canvas) further underscores the constructed nature of migration in search of a better life.