Zolile Petshane returns to Cape Town with his first solo exhibition in the city in a decade. Brick by Brick presents a new body of abstract paintings that reflects on the economic forces shaping everyday life in South Africa, examining the gap between political promises and lived reality.

Rather than illustrating these ideas directly, Petshane uses abstraction to consider systems of debt, inequality and institutional failure. Dense, layered surfaces become a way of thinking through the structures that influence people’s lives, while leaving space for multiple readings.

At the centre of the exhibition are those who keep the economy moving despite these conditions. Informal traders, entrepreneurs and everyday workers become the implicit subjects of the work, recognising the resilience and resourcefulness that often go unseen within broader economic narratives.

Marking an important return for the artist, Brick by Brick shifts the focus from economic statistics to the people who continue to build livelihoods, communities and futures, one step at a time.