CURRICULUM VITAE
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 - Spillovers: Notes on a Phenomenological Ecology,
Curated by Cesare Biasini Silvaggio
Museo MAXXI, Rome
2024 - Solo Presentation at The Armory Show,
with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery,
New York
2024 - Vestige,
Galeria Eduardo Secci,
Pietrasanta
2024 - Surface Tension,
WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery,
Cape Town
2023 - Finds Taken for Wonders,
Piero Atchugarry Gallery,
Miami
2022 - Remains to be Seen,
Eduardo Secci Gallery,
Milan
2022 - Art Brussels,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Brussels
2021 - Elegy,
Nirox Foundation,
Johannesburg
2021 - As Below so Above,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Cape Town
2019 – Field of Vision,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Cape Town
Curated by Cesare Biasini Silvaggio
Museo MAXXI, Rome
2024 - Solo Presentation at The Armory Show,
with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery,
New York
2024 - Vestige,
Galeria Eduardo Secci,
Pietrasanta
2024 - Surface Tension,
WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery,
Cape Town
2023 - Finds Taken for Wonders,
Piero Atchugarry Gallery,
Miami
2022 - Remains to be Seen,
Eduardo Secci Gallery,
Milan
2022 - Art Brussels,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Brussels
2021 - Elegy,
Nirox Foundation,
Johannesburg
2021 - As Below so Above,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Cape Town
2019 – Field of Vision,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Cape Town
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 - Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200.
Brooklyn, New York
2025 - Seven Contours, One Collection.
Permanent exhibition at the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Morocco
2025 - The Floridi Collection: A Journey Through History and Contemporary Art, curated by Giuliana Benassi.
Fondazione D’Arc, Rome
2025 - We, the People: 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, curated by Liese van der Watt.
Norval Foundation, Cape Town
2025 - And I, a newly evolved fish, curated by Rory Tsapayi, Centre for Humanities and Research, Cape Town
2024 - My World curated by Hans den Hartog Jager, Singer Laren,
Laren
2024 - Collection Majudia, Selection of Works from the Collection - Summer 2024,
Arsenal Contemporary, Montreal
2024 - IOTA24,
John Curtin Gallery, Perth
2023 - l’Art de Rien, curated by François de Coninck,
CENTRALE, Brussels
2022 - To Whistle Back,
Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch
2022 - A Quiet New Focus, curated by Sven Christian, Villa Legodi Centre for Sculpture,
Johannesburg
2022 - Seeds of the Fig, Krone x WHATIFTHEWORLD, curated by RESEVOIR, Tulbagh
2021 - In Times Like These... and Other Stories,
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Cape Town
2021 - Witness, curated by Natasha Becker
Piero Atchugarry Gallery,
Miami
2021 - Margins of Error, Curated by Marta Moriarty, Nirox Sculpture Park,
Johannesburg
2020 – Matereality, curated by Andrea Lewis
Iziko South African National Gallery
Cape Town
2019 – Il est une fois à l’Ouest, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA,
Bordeaux
2018 – Germination,
RAW Material Company
Dakar
Brooklyn, New York
2025 - Seven Contours, One Collection.
Permanent exhibition at the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Morocco
2025 - The Floridi Collection: A Journey Through History and Contemporary Art, curated by Giuliana Benassi.
Fondazione D’Arc, Rome
2025 - We, the People: 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, curated by Liese van der Watt.
Norval Foundation, Cape Town
2025 - And I, a newly evolved fish, curated by Rory Tsapayi, Centre for Humanities and Research, Cape Town
2024 - My World curated by Hans den Hartog Jager, Singer Laren,
Laren
2024 - Collection Majudia, Selection of Works from the Collection - Summer 2024,
Arsenal Contemporary, Montreal
2024 - IOTA24,
John Curtin Gallery, Perth
2023 - l’Art de Rien, curated by François de Coninck,
CENTRALE, Brussels
2022 - To Whistle Back,
Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch
2022 - A Quiet New Focus, curated by Sven Christian, Villa Legodi Centre for Sculpture,
Johannesburg
2022 - Seeds of the Fig, Krone x WHATIFTHEWORLD, curated by RESEVOIR, Tulbagh
WHATIFTHEWORLD,
Cape Town
2021 - Witness, curated by Natasha Becker
Piero Atchugarry Gallery,
Miami
2021 - Margins of Error, Curated by Marta Moriarty, Nirox Sculpture Park,
Johannesburg
2020 – Matereality, curated by Andrea Lewis
Iziko South African National Gallery
Cape Town
2019 – Il est une fois à l’Ouest, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA,
Bordeaux
2018 – Germination,
RAW Material Company
Dakar
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES, AND COLLABORATIONS
2025 – Fellow of the Ampersand Foundation. Residency, NYC
2025 – Residency Award by Fundación Patiño in recognition of artist's presentation at Zona Maco, held at Villa Albina, Bolivia
2024 – African Leadership Initiative - Young Leaders Fellow (5th Class)
2022 – Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art Residency Award, Abbaye de la Cambre, Brussels
2021 – NIROX Foundation Residency, Nirox Sculpture Park, Johannesburg
2020 – Selected as one of ten contemporary artists to participate in the 5th edition of the Christian Dior Lady Art project
2020 – Recipient of The Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust Grant
2019 – SEED Award - Presented by the Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art (SAFFCA)
2018 – Fellow of the RAW Academié Session 5, directed by Otobong Nkanga. RAW Material Company, Dakar
2018 – PPC Imaginarium Award, Overall winner, and winner of the Sculpture category
2018 – Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art Residency Award, Knysna
2025 – Residency Award by Fundación Patiño in recognition of artist's presentation at Zona Maco, held at Villa Albina, Bolivia
2024 – African Leadership Initiative - Young Leaders Fellow (5th Class)
2022 – Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art Residency Award, Abbaye de la Cambre, Brussels
2021 – NIROX Foundation Residency, Nirox Sculpture Park, Johannesburg
2020 – Selected as one of ten contemporary artists to participate in the 5th edition of the Christian Dior Lady Art project
2020 – Recipient of The Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust Grant
2019 – SEED Award - Presented by the Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art (SAFFCA)
2018 – Fellow of the RAW Academié Session 5, directed by Otobong Nkanga. RAW Material Company, Dakar
2018 – PPC Imaginarium Award, Overall winner, and winner of the Sculpture category
2018 – Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art Residency Award, Knysna
COLLECTIONS
Chris Soal has works in numerous private and public collections, both in South Africa and Internationally. Notable collections include:
The Brooklyn Museum, USA
de Young Museum, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
The MACAAL Museum, Morocco
MONA - The Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania
Fondazione D’Arc, Rome
The Bunker Artspace (The Beth Rudin DeWoody collection), West Palm Beach
Galila’s P.O.C., Brussels
The Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne
The Perez Collection, Miami
LAM Museum, Lisse
The Kelly and Scott Mueller Collection, USA
The EKARD Collection, Netherlands, USA
Frédéric de Goldschmidt Collection - Cloud Seven, Brussels
Arsenal Contemporary | The Majudia Collection, Montreal; Toronto; New York
The Scheryn Art Collection, South Africa
Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art (SAFFCA), South Africa, France, Belgium
Kavita Chellaram Art collection, London, Lagos
Martin Nielsen Collection, Denmark
D+C Family Collection and Art Foundation, Miami, Bogotá
The Trevor Noah Collection, South Africa and USA
Francesca Lavazza Collection, Turin
The Brooklyn Museum, USA
de Young Museum, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
The MACAAL Museum, Morocco
MONA - The Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania
Fondazione D’Arc, Rome
The Bunker Artspace (The Beth Rudin DeWoody collection), West Palm Beach
Galila’s P.O.C., Brussels
The Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne
The Perez Collection, Miami
LAM Museum, Lisse
The Kelly and Scott Mueller Collection, USA
The EKARD Collection, Netherlands, USA
Frédéric de Goldschmidt Collection - Cloud Seven, Brussels
Arsenal Contemporary | The Majudia Collection, Montreal; Toronto; New York
The Scheryn Art Collection, South Africa
Southern African Foundation for Contemporary Art (SAFFCA), South Africa, France, Belgium
Kavita Chellaram Art collection, London, Lagos
Martin Nielsen Collection, Denmark
D+C Family Collection and Art Foundation, Miami, Bogotá
The Trevor Noah Collection, South Africa and USA
Francesca Lavazza Collection, Turin
INFORMATION
BIOGRAPHY
Portrait by Matt Slater.
Chris Soal (b. 1994) is a South African artist whose critically acclaimed sculpture 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 which show not only a conceptual engagement with the contexts and histories of the objects, but that also re-enforce the body as a site for knowledge reception and production. Soal’s 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, having grown up in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Working symbiotically with his materials, Soal utilises the inherent physical characteristics of the objects to transform them through processes of aggregation, combination and erosion to interrogate views of nature and culture as a binary concept – 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.
NEWS
SEPTEMBER ‘26 - FRIEZE SEOUL
a collaborative presentation by WHATIFTHEWORLD and Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy. Bringing together thirteen artists from nine countries, the presentation explores diverse contemporary practices and cross-cultural dialogue. The fair takes place from 2–5 September 2026 at COEX, Seoul.
OCTOBER ‘25 - MUSEO MAXXI
Presented by Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Spillovers: Notes on a Phenomenological Ecology marks Soal’s first-ever solo museum exhibition. Opening October 19th, 2025, at the Corner MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, the show invites audiences into a tactile and immersive reflection on perception, ecology, and material transformation.
‘25 - BROOKLYN MUSEUM
A piece of Soal’s work was gifted to the Brooklyn Museum, in honour of the Brooklyn Museum's 200th Anniversary. You can find it in the Contemporary Art, Northeast Corner, Overlook Gallery.
‘25 - MACAAL
Located in Marrakech, Morocco, MACAAL shows its permanent collection as apart of its Seven Contours, One Collection exhibition, displaying a piece of Soal’s work.
a collaborative presentation by WHATIFTHEWORLD and Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia, Italy. Bringing together thirteen artists from nine countries, the presentation explores diverse contemporary practices and cross-cultural dialogue. The fair takes place from 2–5 September 2026 at COEX, Seoul.
OCTOBER ‘25 - MUSEO MAXXI
Presented by Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Spillovers: Notes on a Phenomenological Ecology marks Soal’s first-ever solo museum exhibition. Opening October 19th, 2025, at the Corner MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, the show invites audiences into a tactile and immersive reflection on perception, ecology, and material transformation.
‘25 - BROOKLYN MUSEUM
A piece of Soal’s work was gifted to the Brooklyn Museum, in honour of the Brooklyn Museum's 200th Anniversary. You can find it in the Contemporary Art, Northeast Corner, Overlook Gallery.
‘25 - MACAAL
Located in Marrakech, Morocco, MACAAL shows its permanent collection as apart of its Seven Contours, One Collection exhibition, displaying a piece of Soal’s work.
CHRIS SOAL - L’AFRICA COME SPIRITO DELLA MATERIA (CHRIS SOAL: AFRICA AS THE SPIRIT OF MATTER)
︎ by Davide Oliviero for Exhibart
UNEARTHING LAYERS: CHRIS SOAL’S ‘SURFACE TENSION’
︎ by Misha Krynauw for Artthrob
PALIMPSEST: CHRIS SOAL’S SCULPTURES REVEAL MANY MEANINGS
︎ by Drew Haller for That Eclectic
INTERVIEW
︎ with Adam Hencz for Artland
INTERVIEW
︎ on As below so above for Tongues
INTERVIEW
︎ with Emilie Froment for Habitat Magazine
AMORPHOUS - THE SCULPTURES
OF CHRIS SOAL
︎ by Andrew Lasane for COLOSSAL
JOHANNESBURG ARTIST’S TOOTHPICK SCULPTURES POINT WAY FOR AFRICAN ABSTRACTION
︎ by Graham Wood on Wanted Online
︎ by Davide Oliviero for Exhibart
UNEARTHING LAYERS: CHRIS SOAL’S ‘SURFACE TENSION’
︎ by Misha Krynauw for Artthrob
PALIMPSEST: CHRIS SOAL’S SCULPTURES REVEAL MANY MEANINGS
︎ by Drew Haller for That Eclectic
INTERVIEW
︎ with Adam Hencz for Artland
INTERVIEW
︎ on As below so above for Tongues
INTERVIEW
︎ with Emilie Froment for Habitat Magazine
AMORPHOUS - THE SCULPTURES
OF CHRIS SOAL
︎ by Andrew Lasane for COLOSSAL
JOHANNESBURG ARTIST’S TOOTHPICK SCULPTURES POINT WAY FOR AFRICAN ABSTRACTION
︎ by Graham Wood on Wanted Online