Kate GottgensUnsteady Realms
Over the past decade, Kate Gottgens has emerged as one of South Africa’s most internationally recognised contemporary artists, with solo exhibitions in Belgium, New York, and London. Unsteady Realms, opening at Norval Foundation on 15 September 2026, marks the first time a museum has dedicated a solo exhibition to her work.
Preview the Works
Create a Goodman Gallery account to view our full selection of available works, access pricing and check out online.
Gottgens’ figures, most often women, occupy spaces that feel both familiar and elusive. Her paintings invite viewers to consider how identity is shaped by memory, emotion and lived experience rather than by certainty. Rather than offering fixed narratives, the works create space for reflection, resonating in a moment when questions of identity, belonging and representation remain at the forefront of public conversation.
Artist Bio
Kate Gottgens (b. 1965, Durban, South Africa) explores the subconscious and unconscious terrain of memory, repression and desire through colour-saturated, psychologically-laden paintings. Shifting between figuration and abstraction, Gottgens blends imagery, time and place to create ambiguous moments that are simultaneously atmospheric and visually seductive, with narratives strangely unsettling, even ominous.
Gottgens was the recipient of the Ampersand Fellowship Award, resulting in a residency in New York City, USA, in 2019. She was the only South African to appear in the prestigious Thames & Hudson publication, 100 Painters of Tomorrow (2014), and was featured in South African cultural analyst and art critic Ashraf Jamal’s book In the World: Essays on Contemporary South African Art (2017). She has shown in several solo and group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad, including Licked by the waves, New Bathers in Art, Museum More, Gorssel, The Netherlands (2024); Whispering of Ghosts, Boschendal Norval Art Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa (2022); The Rising Sea, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (NUNC), Antwerp, Belgium (2015); In Search of Imaginary World, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (NUNC), Antwerp, Belgium (2014); Symbols of the Self, University of Cape Town (UCT) Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa.
Her works are represented in collections including the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, USA; Collection Majudia, Montreal, Canada, the Leeu Collection, Franschhoek, South Africa; the Cassatt Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the Homestead Collection housed at Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa.
Gottgens lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
To view available artworks and access prices.
