‘I work with materials that I find resonant - from nail polish, glitter, YouTube clips and silly string to resin, automotive paint, and glitter glue.’

Rosie Mudge is a multidisciplinary artist best known for her large-scale paintings composed of traditionally gendered materials, like industrial automotive paint and tubs of glitter glue. Through her shimmering, evocative paintings, Mudge investigates themes of materiality, gender and intimacy. She subverts the feminised ideas of glitter, as being reserved for superficial love notes or personal reflections in journals. Mudge instead treats it with reverence - incorporating it into her imposing, enigmatic works. She also works in sound, installation, photography, drawing and sculpture.

Rosie Mudge was born in 1988 in Knysna and currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She obtained her BAFA with distinction from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in 2013.

Her solo exhibitions include I’ll Keep Your Dreams, You Pay Attention to Me at SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2024; a solo booth at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in the TOMORROW’S/TODAY section, curated by Mariella Franzoni, with SMAC Gallery at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa; and Under Pressure at SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, both in 2023. In 2022, she presented TALKING BACK, her third solo show, at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa. Her earlier solo exhibitions include From My Balcony to Yours with SMITH Studio in Cape Town, South Africa, and Long Shadows with SMAC Gallery in Stellenbosch, South Africa, both in 2020; as well as In My Room with Mazzy Star with SMITH Studio in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2018.

Mudge has participated in numerous group exhibitions and presentations, including the Investec Cape Town Art Fair at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in Cape Town and FNB Art Joburg at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg in 2024 and 2023, both with SMAC Gallery. She also participated in Back in Town at SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, in 2023. Other group exhibitions include Naughty Aughties at SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2022; Soft/Loud, curated by Eliana Blechman, at Travellers Towers Gallery, Michigan, USA; Smalls at Otomys Gallery in Melbourne, Australia; and The Absolutely Fabulous Spring Show at Everard Read in Johannesburg, South Africa, all in 2021. In 2020, she participated in Home Is Where the Art Is at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as the Investec Cape Town Art Fair. She also exhibited at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in 2019 and 2018 and at FNB Art Joburg in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2019, 2018, and 2017, all with SMITH Studio. Additionally, she took part in an international group exhibition and residency at The Third Dot in Mauritius in 2019.

Mudge has also co-founded two transient project spaces, Cubicle and Jnr, in Cape Town, South Africa.

In 2025, she will be the first artist featured in the rotating programme on artists' mothers, presenting a solo section in collaboration with the exhibition Motherhood: Paradox and Duality at Iziko South African National Gallery, curated by Andrea Lewis.

b. 1988Lives and works between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Belgium.

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b. 1988
Lives and works between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Belgium.