Gerald Machona is a Zimbabwean born visual artist with a Master’s Degree in Fine Art in Sculpture from Rhodes University and holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Cape Town, completed at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Machona is currently enrolled for a PhD at the University of Cape Town.
Machona works with sculpture, performance, new media, photography and film, and the most notable aspect of his work is his innovative use of currency–particularly decommissioned Zimbabwean dollars–as an aesthetic material.
Machona’s current work engages with issues of migration, transnationality, social interaction and xenophobia in South Africa, and explores the creative limits of visual art production through the use of decommissioned currency as a key medium.
He has participated in group exhibitions including Disguise: Masks and Global African Art at the Brooklyn Museum (New York: 2016), Sydney Biennial (Sydney: 2016), What Remains is Tomorrow, South African Pavilion, Venice Biennale (Venice: 2015), The Beautyful Ones at Nolan Judin Gallery (Berlin: 2013).
Gerald Machona’s work is featured in the Zeitz MOCAA exhibition, Still here tomorrow to high five you yesterday… (2019).