| abstract | - Born in Durban in 1977, Sharlene Khan completed both a BA (Fine Arts) and MA (Fine Arts) at the University of Durban-Westville, before moving to Johannesburg to complete a second Masters degree in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. She completed a PhD (Arts) at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2015. She has exhibited in group exhibitions in Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Switzerland, India, France, USA, Sweden and Holland, and has held solo shows in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Since 2002 she has participated in international residency programmes and visual art workshops in Cape Town, Johannesburg, KwaZulu-Natal, Cairo, France and Italy. Her artwork for over eleven years focused on street trade and the large informal economy in South African city centres. Although primarily a painter, Khan’s paintings are often presented with a range of media resulting in installations and performance pieces incorporating fashion, music, video, ink and charcoal drawings in mock fashion presentations. As of 2008, her visual work has increasingly focused around issues of identity and family history and the intersectionality of race-class-gender-education-religion-ethnicity-nationality. She has been nominated twice for the Mbokodo Women in Arts Award and has been the recipient of the Canon Collins/Commonwealth Scholarship, the Abe Bailey Fellowship and the African Centre AIR award and the 23rd VKP Filmburo Bremen Video Art Award. Khan has also been extensively involved in various mural projects in the KwaZulu-Natal region between 1999 and 2002 and is also a freelance writer and curator. She coordinated and co-curated The ID of South African Artists in Holland in 2004, has participated as both curator and artist in the 10 Years, 100 Artists Project by Bell-Roberts Publishing (2004) and has written articles for numerous catalogues and publications. In 2008, Khan, as a member of the Dead Revolutionaries Club, co-curated the Esikhaleni – Spatial Practices exhibition (an official Joburg Art Fair fringe exhibition). The Dead Revolutionaries Club is a non-profit collective which presents visual art classes, talks and a website that engages with cultural production in southern Africa. Khan was an events coordinator at the Humanities Graduate Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) from 2006 – 2009 and lectured at The University of South Africa in the Department of Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology (Pretoria) from January 2010 – September 2011. Her list of articles include: 2015: Khan, S. ‘I Make Art – Voicing Voice, Speaking Self and Doing Criticality’, Reconstruction [Electronic], Vol. 15, No.1. Available at: 2014: Khan, S. (publisher) I Make Art. Artist catalogue. Khan, S. ‘I Make Art – Voicing Voice, Speaking Self and Doing Criticality’ in Asfour, F. and Khan, S. (eds.) I Make Art, Johannesburg: Sharlene Khan, pps. 4-19 Khan, S. Speaking Truth to Power: Censorship and Critical Creativity in South Africa, in Petresin-Bachelez, N., Bobin, V. and Silva, B. (eds.) Manifesta Journal #17: Future(s) of Cohabitation, Amsterdam: Manifesta Foundation, pp. 59-63 2012: Khan, S. Becoming – The Art of Everyday Performativity in Stemburger, C.M. (ed.) Alterating Conditions: Performing Performance Art in South Africa, exhibition catalogue, Vienna: artandtheory.net, pp. 16-24 Khan, S. Who am I? Portrait of the life and art of Dumile Feni, Review of documentary Zwelidumile (dir. Ramadan Suleman), Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies, Vol. 3 (1), pp. 100-105 Khan, S. And There He Built an Altar to God, in Bila, V. and Waller, M. (eds.) Authentic Woodcarver, Polokwane: Timbila and Polokwane Art Museum, pp. 33-49 Khan, S. But What’s All Dis Here Talkin ‘Bout?, Artthrob, March, Available at: 2010: Khan, S. (publisher) What I look like, What I feel like. Exhibition catalogue 2008: Khan, S. Gatekeeping Africa, Springerin, Vienna, No. 1/2009, "Art on Demand" 2007: Khan, S. Gatekeeping Africa, Artlink, Vol 27, No. 2 (June), Australia Khan, S. Mokgabudi Amos Letsoalo, Double 07, exhibition catalogue, Polokwane: Polokwane Art Museum 2006: Khan, S. Aluta Continua: Doing it for Daddy, Art South Africa, April, Bell-Roberts Publishing: Cape Town 2004: Khan, S. The African Label, Bidoun Magazine, www.bidoun.com Khan, S. and Koloane, D. Rethinking Identity, The ID of South African 'Artists, exhibition catalogue, Van Den Ende: Holland Khan, S. (editor) The ID of South African Artists Catalogue, Van Den Ende: Holland Khan, S. Sophie Peters, Gabisile Nkosi, Rookeya Gardee, Usha Seejarim, Berni Searle, in Perryer, S. (ed.) 10 Years, 100 Artists, Bell-
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