Thina Dube

South Africa

Available works

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About the Artist

Thina Dube (b.1993) is a South African artist and educator whose practice explores his home country’s multilayered identity politics, as well as the fluidity of identity’s in response to social environments and change. Initially trained as a printmaker – and sometimes using his own crafted handmade paper – Dube unpacks the themes of social inclusion, attachment, memory and loss in relation both to people and to objects. In doing so, he builds a tension between narrative storytelling and the tradition of still life painting.

Referencing theatre conventions, he sees his work as breaking the “fourth wall”, inviting viewers to project themselves into his often-faceless figures, to reflect on their own lived experience and how memories morph through time. This disruption of negative and positive space in his work allows for the audience to consider their own realities whilst questioning how identity is shaped through context and situation.

Dube is a graduate of the University of Johannesburg and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. Dube has worked with Guns & Rain since 2015. He has exhibited in dozens of group shows across South Africa including at the Stellenbosch Museum and ABSA (2018). His work has been shown at AKAA Paris (2018), Cologne Fine Art & Design (2019), ARCO Lisboa (2020) and 1-54 London (2020, 2021), and sits in multiple international collections. He is currently based in Saudi Arabia, where he teaches art at the International Programs School, Dammam.

Exhibitions

2025 Fractured Foundations: Reimagining Resilience, Group show, Guns & Rain Johannesburg
2024 DECADE : 10 Years of Guns & Rain (group exhibition), Johannesburg
2022 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Group show, Cape Town
2021 Paper Exhibitions, Group Exhibitions, Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg
2020 ARCO Lisboa, Portugal, Online
2020 (Re)constructing The Shadow, with Tawanda Takura, Guns & Rain Johannesburg
2o19 Guns & Rain, Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg
2018 Guns & Rain, AKAA, Paris
2018 Solo Exhibition, Guns & Rain, Johannesburg
2018 Residency, First Floor Gallery Harare
2018 Group Exhibition, In Toto, Johannesburg
2018 Group Exhibition, Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town
2018 The Last Harvest, Solo Exhibition, Stellenbosch Museum, Cape Town
2018 Talking to Deaf Ears, Group Exhibition, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg
2017 Salon, Group Exhibition, AVA Gallery, Cape Town
2017 White Noise, Group Exhibition, Joburg Fringe Fair
2017 Partnership Editions, AKAA Art Fair, Paris
2017 Facing Fanagalo, Solo Exhibition, Guns & Rain and National School of the Arts, Johannesburg
2016 Bua, Group exhibition, Sguzu Press, Soweto
2016 Group Exhibition, International AIDS Conference, Durban
2016 Reconnect, Group Exhibition, Eyethu Gallery
2016 Guns & Rain, Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg
2015 Guns & Rain, Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg
2015 Group exhibition, a collaboration with Ka’plan, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg
2014 3rd Year Group Exhibition, FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg