Structure and Mass: Unathi Mkonto’s ‘If Joburg had a beach, who would go?’

A feature by ArtThrob Editors on the 12th of June 2026. This should take you 3 minutes to read.

Goodman Galllery
06.06 - 08.08.2026

Unathi Mkonto’s work is immediately legible as architectural: clean lines, geometric forms, a recurring sense of structure and mass. And yet it remains deliberately open, built around a flowing line that reappears across forms. Each object an iteration of an evolving idea.

His latest solo presentation, ‘If Joburg had a beach, who would go?’, brings together new sculptures and wall-based works constructed from a series of slanted, minimal forms. Through this show, part of Goodman Gallery’s [Working Title], an initiative dedicated to supporting the next generation of artists and experimental practice in South Africa, Mkonto reflects on the spatial conditions of landlocked Johannesburg.

We spoke with Mkonto ahead of the opening about his process, his materials and what it means to imagine an ocean in a city that has none.

Installation View, Unathi Mkonto, If Joburg had a beach, who would go?, 2026

Looking at your practice over the years, one gets a sense that experimentation and ‘following a feeling’ are somehow central to how you work, and yet the language is instantly recognisable. Can you tell us about how you approach space and composition?

I start with points that become lines, then curves. The basics of the practice are points, markings, invisible lines, leading lines, length, plane, walls, and volume. These have all created a language that translates to an emotion.

What can we expect from your new exhibition, ‘If Joburg had a beach, who would go?’

The solo exhibition includes sculptural works, thinking about the ecosystem of water, towers and the urban. At the core of the exhibition is a conceptual inquiry into the emotional and spatial conditions of landlocked Johannesburg. The title introduces a speculative premise, ultimately questioning where energy is stored and how it forms within urban life. The show approaches Johannesburg as a mutable condition, a state of mind as much as a physical place, shaped by histories of division, movement and adaptation.

You’ve worked across different materials throughout your career, and there seems to be something fractal in how you move between them. How are you thinking about material these days?

I respond to what is available around me. In the current work, I use beechwood [the dense, durable and shock-resistant timber harvested from beech trees]. I’m attracted to mass in this work, which is different from working with cardboard in the previous work, which expressed fragility. Here, wood is expressing my raw ideas on abstraction. It reveals the form and textures.

Unathi Mkonto, Lines Become Waves and Waves Become Infinite Waves II, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery. Photograph by Slater Studio.

You were recently named the Distinguished Award recipient of the Toyota Tsusho CFAO African Art Award. Congratulations. Can you tell us a little about what goes into this prize and what it means to you?

It’s very meaningful that people around me see my work and are able to put it into context with other artists working on the continent. In part, I am making a language and ideas about the future of architecture on the continent, and so this means a lot to me.

I have always wondered which artists are drawn to. Who do you learn from and who inspires you?

I’m inspired by Alexander Calder, all parts of him. The architect Glenn Murcutt, American architect and design graphics writer Francis DK Ching, Rem Koolhaas and Bristol-based Barefoot architects.

‘If Joburg had a beach, who would go?’ is on view at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg until 8th August 2026.