David Madlabane

Johannesburg-based visual artist David Madlabane, born in 1996, known as David Black, explores the relationship between identity, environment, and architecture. Inspired by his experiences moving through Johannesburg, he reflects on growth, change, and the evolving urban landscape.

He centres the human figure in his work, using fingerprint-inspired contour lines to build portraits that suggest identity’s fluidity and fragmentation. Negative spaces evoke erasure and fractured histories, while rigid architectural forms drawn from the city’s skyline represent the social and political structures that shape behaviour. Together, these elements contrast the organic and the urban, positioning the city as a mirror of the self.

Madlabane works across multiple mediums, grounded in traditional printmaking such as linocut, silkscreen, and etching. He has worked with Artist Proof Studio and William Kentridge’s studio and has received accolades including the People’s Choice Award at the Strauss & Co Art Competition and first prize in a collaboration between Artist Proof Studio and Cartier at the FNB Joburg Art Fair.

A finalist for the Blessing Ngobeni Art Prize, his work appears in major collections, including The Legacy Group at the Leonardo Building. He continues to expand internationally through partnerships such as with the Los Angeles Printmaking Society.

David Madlabane is represented at The Artists Gallery in Cape Town.