The Absa L’Atelier Art & Lifestyle Fair is an annual art competition that platforms young creative trailblazers from across 12 African countries. The event returns for its third consecutive year on Saturday, 10 October 2026, featuring artworks by the Top 12 Finalists of the Absa L’Atelier Art 2026 Competition and live entertainment from local favourites.

Absa L’Atelier Art 2026 celebrates 40 years of championing African creativity

This year, Absa L’Atelier Art celebrates 40 years as Africa’s biggest and most prestigious platform for emerging visual artists, an achievement that was marked by the Forty Door Absa L’Atelier Art Legacy event in September of 2026, during which art that spoke to African heritage, diverse traditions and indigenous art was showcased.

What to look forward to at the Absa L’Atelier Art and Lifestyle Fair

As is tradition, every year the prestigious Absa L’Atelier Art competition’s top continental finalists showcase their work at the Absa L’Atelier Art and Lifestyle fair, with the competition winners also being announced at the fair.

Selected from hundreds of entries spanning Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, the Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, the finalists are competing for the opportunity to become one of three 2026 Absa L’Atelier Art Ambassadors, while one outstanding young South African artist will receive the coveted Gerard Sekoto Award.

Msaki headlines the Absa L’Atelier Art and Lifestyle Fair

Beyond the art, visitors also get to experience live entertainment throughout the afternoon. South African singer-songwriter Msaki has been announced as the headliner of the 2026 Absa L’Atelier Art and Lifestyle Fair, bringing her distinctive voice to Waterfall City Park.

She is joined by the three-time Grammy Award-winning Soweto Gospel Choir and R&B artist Elaine, adding a powerful live music line-up to a fair celebrating 40 years of Absa L’Atelier Art. The performances unfold alongside an exhibition of work by the competition’s 12 finalists.

Meet the 2026 Absa L’Atelier Art finalists

From thought-provoking paintings and striking photography to boundary-pushing sculpture, this year’s finalists used art as a powerful lens through which to explore identity, culture, heritage and contemporary African life.

The 12 finalists whose works can be discovered at the Absa L’Atelier Art and Lifestyle Fair include:

1. Lerato Lodi (South Africa) – a multidisciplinary artist, art entrepreneur and cultural practitioner whose practice primarily explores African spirituality and religious themes through acrylic paint on canvas, enamel dishes, sacred ancestral cloth and mixed media.
2. Emmanuel Shanga (Zambia) – a self-taught visual artist whose journey has been untraditional, led instead by his curiosity than through professional art training.
3. Ninsiima Peter Aka Peterfog (Uganda) – an artist whose art is representative of gratitude, minimising life’s complaints, maximising self-acceptance, self-awareness and positive living through the life trail.
4. Deolu Femi (Nigeria) – a paper artist based in Lagos whose art explores how memory and experience continue to shape the body over time. His process involves repeated cutting, folding, layering and compression to communicate experiences difficult to express through words.
5. Pebofatso Mokoena (South Africa) – a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art degree-holding contemporary artist whose creative process also extends to writing.
6. Gavin Kendo (Kenya) – a Nairobi-based visual artist whose paintings explore the intersection of identity, memory, nature and emotional healing. Kendo creates dreamlike worlds inspired by lucid dreams, meditation and everyday experience.
7.  Treasure Mlima (South Africa) – an artist who works primarily with carved wood, opening his subjects to a multitude of interpretations, meanings and formal explorations.
8. Anita Sika-Gyamfi (Ghana) – a painter and sculptor whose practice centres on conceptual abstract works that exist between painting and sculpture.
9. Sphumelele Zondi (South Africa) – a sculptor, mixed media artist and the overall winner of the Sasol New Signatures Visual Arts Competition 2026. Her practice aids her in investigating memory, childhood nostalgia, and the relationship that exists between the past and the present.
10. Reginald Kofi Boateng (Ghana) – a photographer who uses the lens of an iPhone to capture and edit beautiful stories, creating colourful digital art. His work reflects an imaginary world using vibrant colours and setting them in contrast with the melanin skin of his subjects.
11. Segun Victor Owolabi (Nigeria) – a visual artist who has a distinctive approach to portraiture that uses thread. His works explore identity, memory, resilience, inheritance and the often-unseen experiences that shape who we become.
12. Alexander Appolis (South Africa) – a multidisciplinary artist and researcher working across painting, drawing, sculpture and spatial installation. His practice investigates how racialised imaginaries and pastoral visual languages can persist in shaping post-apartheid middle-class life.

The winners chosen from these finalists each receive a new laptop, ten (virtual or in-person) masterclasses, a four-month mentorship programme, and a concurrent two-month international residency.

Additionally, the winners will each have a solo exhibition in their home country within two years of winning the award with up to R100 000 for material costs towards their exhibition. There is also the Absa L’Atelier Art Gerard Sekoto Award for South African artists aged between 25 and 35.

How to attend

Cost: From R350pp; purchase via Howler

When: Saturday, 10 October 2026 from 10am to 5pm
Where: Waterfall City Park, Entrance 26, Mall of Africa, Cnr Karkloof Cres &, Lisbon Ln, Waterval 5-Ir, Midrand

Wesbite: ABSA L’atelier
Instagram: @absa_group

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