Refiloe Mnisi

Bio

(b. 1994, Soweto) is a South African multidisciplinary artist. A self-taught artist, Mnisi’s practice moves fluidly across mediums, centering around the abstraction of the human experience and the metaphysical. Drawing inspiration from African spiritual traditions, personal memory, and cosmic philosophy, his work investigates the harmony between mind, body, and soul through symbolic and intuitive abstraction.

Mnisi’s visual language is deeply informed by the legacy of his late father, the artist Samson Mnisi, and thinkers such as Sun Ra, whose influence can be felt in the artist’s exploration of the unseen, ancestral narratives, and the metaphysical dimensions of existence. Through layered symbolism and abstraction, his work invites audiences to reflect on themes of identity, spirituality, and interconnectedness.

In 2023, Mnisi presented Pula, a solo exhibition at Kakdel Art Hub in Tel Aviv. The show explored the cultural and spiritual symbolism of water within African cosmology, using mixed media works to meditate on cycles of renewal, memory, and connection. That same year, he completed three international artist residencies in Tel Aviv: at Herzl 140, Under1000, and Kakdel Art. These residencies allowed Mnisi to further expand his multidisciplinary practice, engaging with new materials, communities, and site-responsive projects.

Mnisi’s work was included in the 2024 edition of Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg, one of South Africa’s leading contemporary art fairs, where his pieces continued to reflect his ongoing engagement with themes of metaphysics and the abstraction of personal and collective experience.

His practice remains rooted in an intuitive process, allowing works to evolve organically as meditations on the visible and invisible forces that shape human existence. Mnisi continues to develop a body of work that bridges ancestral knowledge with contemporary abstraction, offering visual spaces for reflection, healing, and spiritual inquiry.