What Is Drawing If Not Thinking? Meleko Mokgosi’s Radical Return to Stevenson Johannesburg

The acclaimed artist reframes drawing as a space of resistance, speculation, and psychological depth in this bold new exhibition

Johannesburg’s winter art season has found one of its most quietly intense highlights in Speculations on Drawing, a new solo exhibition by Meleko Mokgosi at Stevenson Gallery in Parktown North. But this is not just a return for Mokgosi. It is a return to fundamentals, to the line, the body, and the question of how we come to know what we see.

Running until 22 August 2025, this thoughtful show takes visitors far beyond aesthetics. It invites them into a deeper philosophical conversation on how drawing can hold and question ideas of power, identity, and representation.

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From Democratic Intuition to Spaces of Subjection

Mokgosi is no stranger to Johannesburg audiences. Many know his name from Democratic Intuition (2013–2019), the eight-part series that unpacked the lived complexities of democracy in Southern Africa. His latest work, however, turns inward.

Speculations on Drawing is part of a wider investigation called Spaces of Subjection, which explores how subjectivity is formed, not just socially, but also psychically and physically. The artist draws on thinkers like Michel Foucault to probe the mechanisms that shape who we are and how we are perceived.

“Subjection is a structural necessity for becoming,” Mokgosi asserts. In his work, this isn’t just a theory; it’s something you feel.

Drawing as a Space of Contingency

Forget the old idea of drawing as a sketch before the “real” art happens. Mokgosi flips this on its head. In his hands, drawing is not a support act; it is the main event. And it’s deeply physical.

Using a layered mix of screenprint, etching, drypoint, chine collé, charcoal, and digital drawing, Mokgosi positions the act of drawing as a gesture rooted in the body: a bodily trace, a line of thought, and a kind of spatial memory.

He draws not just with technique but with intent: domestic interiors, modernist figurines, fragments of language, and surveillance posters weave through his compositions. They feel elliptical, even ghostly, never quite settling into a single interpretation.

“Regardless of the presence of the body in a drawing,” he writes, “the body is foundational to drawing.”

The Politics of the Line

There’s something deeply political in Mokgosi’s refusal to treat drawing as “preliminary.” His works are not studies or rehearsals. They are maps of thinking about race, control, desire, visual language, and the paradox of being both subject and object.

In this way, the exhibition takes aim at long-held hierarchies in art history that have placed drawing beneath painting or sculpture. Mokgosi instead repositions it as a tool of inquiry, one that is open, unfinished, and always in motion.

Image 1: Facebook/Stevenson

A Dual-City Moment for a Singular Artist

While Speculations on Drawing unfolds in Johannesburg, its sister show, Appellations, is happening simultaneously at Stevenson’s Cape Town space. Together, they mark Mokgosi’s third exhibition with the gallery and perhaps his most philosophical yet.

And though the works span multiple materials and visual references, they’re united by a single, radical premise: drawing is not just visual. It’s cognitive. It’s bodily. It’s political.

Before You Go

Whether you’re an artist, a philosopher, or someone simply drawn to layered storytelling, Speculations on Drawing invites slow looking and even slower thinking. It asks, What do we see when we draw? And what draws us into seeing the world a certain way?

Exhibition Details

On until: 22 August 2025
Where: Stevenson Gallery, 46 7th Ave, Parktown North, Randburg, Johannesburg
Gallery Hours: Tues–Fri 9am to 5pm | Sat 10am to 1pm
Contact: 011 403 1055
Website: stevenson.info
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @stevenson_za | Facebook: @Stevenson.Gallery

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Source: What’s On In Joburg, stevenson.info

Featured Image: STEVENSON