Selected Works
Chris Soal, Panorama, 2022, Discarded Beer Bottle Caps threaded onto Electric Fencing Cable, held in Polyurethane Sealant on Board, 154 x 152 x 5 cm
Chris Soal, Ariadne’s Thread, Discarded Beer Bottle Caps threaded onto Electric Fencing Cable, held in Polyurethane Sealant on Board, 128 x 97 x 5 cm
Chris Soal
Born 1994, South Africa
Chris Soal (b. 1994) is a South African artist whose critically acclaimed sculptural practice—shaped by a Johannesburg upbringing and now based in Cape Town—has garnered international recognition for its innovative engagement with materiality, perception, and place. Soal’s studio-based practice is sculptural in its output, working with objects and materials in ways that show not only a conceptual engagement with the contexts and histories of the objects but also reinforce the body as a site for knowledge reception and production. His works seek to make a poetic statement through the simplest of means, engaging the viewer’s spatial awareness and perceptual habits while challenging core societal preconceptions of value and hierarchy. Through his use of discarded and mundane ephemera, such as toothpicks and bottle caps, along with concrete, rebar, electric fencing cable, sandpaper, and other industrial materials, the artist intuitively develops the familiar to the point of the uncanny. Soal’s works can be considered as a social abstraction, deeply rooted in and reflective of his upbringing in Johannesburg, South Africa. Working symbiotically with his materials, Soal utilizes the inherent physical characteristics of the objects to transform them through processes of aggregation, combination, and erosion—seeking to foreground pressing ecological concerns by repositioning the viewer as an active agent within the contemporary environment. Despite the artificiality of his materials, his process allows them to take on biomorphic qualities or evoke natural phenomena, expressing his interest in their phenomenological qualities.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024
Vestige, Eduardo Secci Gallery, Pietrasanta, Italy
Surface Tension, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa
2023
Finds Taken For Wonders, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami, FL
L'art de rien at CENTRALE for contemporary art, Brussels
2022
Remains to be seen, Eduardo Secci Gallery, Milan, Italy.
2021
Elegy, Nirox Foundation, Cradle of Humankind, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Sleight and Substance, Montoro 12, Brussels, Belgium.
2019
Field of Vision, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa.
2018
Orbits of Relating, No End Contemporary Art Space, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200. Brooklyn, New York
Seven Contours, One Collection. Permanent exhibition at the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Morocco
The Floridi Collection: A Journey Through History and Contemporary Art, curated by Giuliana Benassi. Fondazione D’Arc, Rome
We, the People: 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, curated by Liese van der Watt, Norval Foundation, Cape Town
2024
My World, curated by Hans den Hartog Jager, Singer Laren, Laren
Summer 2024 - Collection Majudia, Selection of Works from the Collection, Arsenal Contemporary, Montreal
IOTA24, John Curtin Gallery, Perth
2023
L’Art de Rien, CENTRALE Brussels, Belgium
To Whistle Back, , Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2022
A Quiet New Focu, Villa-Legoadi Centre for Sculpture, Nirox Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Seeds of the Fig, Krone & WHATIFTHEWORLD, Tulbagh, South Africa.
2021
In Times Like These...and Other Stories, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa.
Witness, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami, Florida.
40 under 40, Twee Jonge Gezellen Wine Estate, Krone & WHATIFTHEWORLD, Tulbagh, South Africa.
Margins of Error, Nirox Sculpture Park, Cradle of Humankind, Johannesburg, South Africa.
2020
Matereality, Iziko National Museum of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa.
2019
Process, BKhz, Braamfontein, South Africa.
Il est une fois à l’Ouest, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux, France.
2018
Germination, RAW Material Company, Dakar, Senegal.
Forward? Forward! Forward..., Stellenbosch University Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Videos
Get to Know our Artists:
Chris Soal
Working with everyday objects to create unusual sculptures, Chris Soal explores themes such as space ecology, and the relationship between individual and collective in works heavily influenced by his experience living and working between Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Soal combines abandoned items such as toothpicks and bottle caps with industrial materials, examining aspects of urban living, environmental concerns, and challenging societal norms of value.
Past Exhibition
Finds Taken For Wonders
April 15th — July 29th, 2023
Piero Atchugarry Gallery is pleased to announce Finds Taken For Wonders, the debut solo-exhibition in our Miami Survey of newly represented South African artist Chris Soal.