SMAC Gallery

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SMAC Gallery CAPE TOWN
25 Church Street
City Centre

STELLENBOSCH
De Wet Centre
Church St In addition, SMAC maintains an active publishing initiative.

SMAC Gallery is a leading South African contemporary art gallery representing established and emerging artists from South Africa, Africa, and further afield. SMAC was established in Cape Town in 2011, with spaces in Johannesburg and Stellenbosch. With a programme focused on presenting the work of contemporary African artists, SMAC Gallery was established in Cape Town in 2011, with spaces in Johannesburg and Stellenbosch. The gallery manages a dynamic programme of exhibitions and curatorial projects that focus on contemporary artistic discourses, while facilitating collaborative projects with local and international institutions and artists. SMAC Gallery’s art fair participation includes Art Basel Miami Beach, The Armory Show, Art Brussels, Artissima.

MARELI LAL | OFFSET The female body, especially, is expected to deliver it. Lal withholds it instead. What remains reads...
08/10/2026

MARELI LAL | OFFSET

The female body, especially, is expected to deliver it. Lal withholds it instead. What remains reads as control, a practice suspended between modernist order and something more psychological. Lal herself has spoken of the work as an expression of uncertainty, a residue of her own psychological process. The images give everything visually and nothing emotionally. That withholding is the seduction.

View the final weeks of ‘Offset’ by Mareli Lal at SMAC Cape Town.

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Mareli Lal

FASHION THE IMAGE | WALKABOUT A peek into our insightful walkabout of Fashion_The Image, held at SMAC Cape Town in conju...
05/10/2026

FASHION THE IMAGE | WALKABOUT

A peek into our insightful walkabout of Fashion_The Image, held at SMAC Cape Town in conjunction with the Cape Town Photography Festival.

Thank you to curator and fashion director of Wanted magazine, Sharon Armstrong for sharing your insights and to the rest of the team Aspasia Karras, Editor of Wanted magazine, Dr Erica de Greef and Ayabukwa Magocoba of the African Fashion Research Institute.

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL 2026 Recap of our group exhibition at Contemporary Istanbul. Thank you to everyone that stopped by...
28/09/2026

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL 2026

Recap of our group exhibition at Contemporary Istanbul.
Thank you to everyone that stopped by.

Contemporary Istanbul
Frances Goodman
Rosie Mudge
Gommaar Gilliams
Nicholas Hales

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | ROSIE MUDGE Multidisciplinary artist Rosie Mudge, builds her surfaces through a cumulative, pain...
23/09/2026

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | ROSIE MUDGE

Multidisciplinary artist Rosie Mudge, builds her surfaces through a cumulative, painstaking application - layering individual grains of glitter, resin and automotive paint by hand until the surface itself becomes luminous.

Mudge was born in 1988 in Knysna, South Africa. She obtained her BAFA with distinction from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in 2013. Mudge is a multidisciplinary artist best known for her paintings composed of traditionally gendered materials, like industrial automotive paint and tubs of glitter glue. Through her shimmering, evocative paintings, Mudge investigates themes of materiality, gender and intimacy. In 2025, Mudge featured in the rotating programme on artists’ mothers, presenting a solo section in collaboration with the exhibition Motherhood: Paradox and Duality at Iziko South African National Gallery. Notable group exhibitions include: Still Moving at Bode Gallery, Berlin, Germany; the Investec Cape Town Art Fair at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in Cape Town in 2024 and 2023, with SMAC Gallery.

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Rosie Mudge
Contemporary Istanbul

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I’ve never fallen from quite this high | 2026 | Automotive Paint and Glittler Glue on Canvas | 122.5 x 92 cm

Weren’t we the stars in heaven, weren’t we the salt in the sea? | 2026 | Automotive Paint and Glittler Glue on Canvas | 52.5 x 52.5 cm

Can I sail through the Changing Ocean Tides? | 2026 | Automotive Paint and Glitter Glue on Canvas | 73 x 62.5 cm

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | NICHOLAS HALES Painter Nicholas Hales, holds controlled linework and exacting gradients in tensi...
23/09/2026

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | NICHOLAS HALES

Painter Nicholas Hales, holds controlled linework and exacting gradients in tension against gestural underpainting - an interplay of spontaneity and precision, refined over years of meditative discipline.

Hales was born in 1970 in Cape Town, South Africa. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Fine Art (1992) and a Diploma in Graphic Design (1991) from the University of Cape Town. Hales is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, drawing, film, and video, with process central to his practice. His works often originate through intuitive, emotionally driven mark-making that forms layered gestures building an atmospheric space shaped by transpersonal psychology, spirituality, neuroscience, and Eastern philosophy. Hales has participated in several international residency projects which include: L’Air Arts in Paris, France in 2019; Château d’Orquevaux. Residency in France and Enter Text in Arteles, Finland, both in 2018; and Vermont Studio Center residency, USA in 2010.

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Nicholas Hales
Contemporary Istanbul

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Noah’s ark | 2026 | Oil and Acrylic on Board | 23 x 17 cm
Untitled 3 | 2026 | Oil and Acrylic on Board | 35 x 35 cm
Golden Light 2 | 2026 | Oil and Acrylic on Canvas | 35 x 35 cm

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | GOMMAAR GILLIAMS Painter Gommaar Gilliams, composes his canvases in intricate, cross-stitched p...
22/09/2026

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | GOMMAAR GILLIAMS

Painter Gommaar Gilliams, composes his canvases in intricate, cross-stitched passages of pigment - a technique built on precise command of layering and chiaroscuro.

Gilliams was born in Lier, Belgium in 1982. Gilliams graduated in Visual Arts from LUCA School of Arts in Brussels in 2013, and in 2016, he obtained a Master of Arts specialising in Painting from PXL MAD School of Arts in Hasselt, Belgium under the mentorship of Koen Van Den Broek. Gilliams’ oeuvre is a full-bodied exploration of painting, sculpture, and printmaking. His work takes direction from the frescoes and folklores that span our collective memory; foxes, swans, night skies and crescent moons indicate a playful return to myth and mirth. Gilliams has exhibited with numerous international galleries, including Gallery Sofie Van de Velde in Antwerp, Belgium; De Buck Gallery in New York, USA; Arusha Gallery in London, United Kingdom; and SMAC Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Gommaar Gilliams
Contemporary Istanbul

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Teramo | 2026 | Oil, Oil Stick, Acrylic on Painted and Stitched Fabric | 200 x 150 cm

Somu | 2026 | Oil, Oil Stick, Acrylic on Painted and Stitched Fabric | 200 x 240 cm

Metope | 2025 | Oil, Oil stick, Acrylic on Painted and Stitched Fabrics | 200 x 150 cm

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | FRANCES GOODMAN Multidisciplinary artist, Frances Goodman, assembles her surfaces incrementally:...
22/09/2026

CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL | FRANCES GOODMAN

Multidisciplinary artist, Frances Goodman, assembles her surfaces incrementally: fabric joined into richly tessellated patterns, clay shaped prior to firing, sequins stitched individually.

Goodman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1975. Goodman obtained a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College at the University of London, United Kingdom in 2000, and holds a Laureateship from the Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (HISK) in Antwerp, Belgium. Goodman critically engages with culturally established norms regarding beauty and femininity by reworking stereotypically gendered materials, such as sequins and acrylic nails, and anchoring her practice in an exploration of these materials as valuable and disposable; hand-made and synthetic; culturally significant and fleeting trends. She was a recipient of the Cecily Brown Fellowship for Outstanding Woman Artists in 2014 and took part in The Fountainhead Residency Programme in Miami, USA. Her work is part of various international collections including The National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, USA, the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) Collection in Miami, USA and The Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Marrakech, Morocco.

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Frances Goodman
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Pain Killer II | 2026 | Glazed Ceramic | 38 x 18 x 18 cm
Tempting Tower IV | 2026 | Glazed Ceramic | 44 x 23 x 23 cm
Tempting Tower VIII | 2026 | Glazed Ceramic | 52 x 14 x 14 cm
Repeat Daily III | 2024 | Glazed Ceramics | 28 x 15 x 15 cm

UPCOMING | CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL SMAC Gallery is pleased to be returning to the 21st edition of Contemporary Istanbul wi...
21/09/2026

UPCOMING | CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL

SMAC Gallery is pleased to be returning to the 21st edition of Contemporary Istanbul with a group presentation, featuring Frances Goodman, Gommaar Gilliams, Rosie Mudge and Nicholas Hales. Find us at Booth B129 in the Hall B from the 23rd-26th of September 2026.

Our presentation at Contemporary Istanbul 2026 brings together four artists whose practices are grounded in a shared discipline of process - where meticulous, labour-intensive making is as integral as concept. Painter Gommaar Gilliams, composes his canvases in intricate, cross-stitched passages of pigment - a technique built on precise command of layering and chiaroscuro. Multidisciplinary artist, Frances Goodman, assembles her surfaces incrementally: fabric joined into richly tessellated patterns, clay shaped prior to firing, sequins stitched individually. Painter Nicholas Hales, holds controlled linework and exacting gradients in tension against gestural underpainting - an interplay of spontaneity and precision, refined over years of meditative discipline. Multidisciplinary artist Rosie Mudge, builds her surfaces through a cumulative, painstaking application - layering individual grains of glitter, resin and automotive paint by hand until the surface itself becomes luminous. In each of these practices, process operates as its own form of content - in which the rigour of making is as central to the work as the image it ultimately yields.

VENUE
Camiikebir, Taşkızak Tersanesi Cd.
No: 5, 34440
Tersane Istanbul
Turkey

VERNISSAGE
23 September | 16h00 – 21h00
PUBLIC DATES
24 September | 11h00 – 19h00
25 September | 11h00 - 19h00
26 September | 11h00 - 18h00
27 September | 11h00 - 18h00

Request a preview portfolio via DM or at [email protected]

Frances Goodman
Gommaar Gilliams
Nicholas Hales
Rosie Mudge
Contemporary Istanbul

UPCOMING | MARELI LAL Join us for a walkabout of Fashion_The Image with Aspasia Karras and the curators, followed by a b...
15/09/2026

UPCOMING | MARELI LAL

Join us for a walkabout of Fashion_The Image with Aspasia Karras and the curators, followed by a brunch with artist Mareli Lal, on Saturday, 19 September at 10h30 for 11h00, SMAC Cape Town.

Inherent in Offset is Lal’s obsession with balance, colour, fashion, shape. Her stated entry point is beauty, and the work delivers it without apology: clean, poised, smooth, instantly attractive. But it is also a trap. How can an image of a woman in lipstick, stockings, a bathing suit, be this beautiful, this intimate, and still feel void of emotion? The coldness is not shallow. It is a surface concealing real depth and real control. The body is seen, never sexualised, reduced almost to pure shape. Faces are concealed, cropped, withheld. The work resists intimacy even as it manufactures beauty, and it is this estrangement, staged in plain sight, that generates the charge between viewer and image. Seductive. Faintly frightening.

Request a portfolio via DM or via [email protected]

Mareli Lal

Hollow I | 2026 | Digital Pigment Print on Fabric with LED Lightbox Mount | 120 x 160 cm

UPCOMING | CAPE TOWN PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL From 2–26 September 2026, the Cape Town Photography Festival returns with Trut...
10/09/2026

UPCOMING | CAPE TOWN PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

From 2–26 September 2026, the Cape Town Photography Festival returns with Truth as its central theme, bringing together exhibitions and photographic practices that explore the many ways in which images shape, reflect and challenge our understanding of the world around us.

SMAC Gallery is pleased to participate in this year’s festival, hosting two exhibitions: Fashion_The Image, curated by Sharon Armstrong in partnership with Aspasia Karras and developed with Dr Erica de Greef and Ayabukwa Magocoba of the African Fashion Research Institute; Offset by Mareli Lal, a rigorous photographer whose practice borrows from the formalist concerns with balance, shape and colour while engaging with a postmodern understanding of the body, representation and the gaze.

Join us for a walkabout of Fashion_The Image with Aspasia Karras and the curators, followed by a brunch with Offset artist Mareli Lal, on Saturday, 19 September at 10h30 for 11h00, SMAC Cape Town.

Address

25 Church Street
Cape Town
8001

Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00
Saturday 10:00 - 15:00

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