Biography

Jacki McInnes

(b. 1966 Durban, South Africa)

Jacki McInnes has practiced variously as an artist, arts writer and curator since obtaining her BA(FA) (with distinction) from UNISA in 2001. She won the UNISA Fine Art Faculty Medal in the same year and went on to complete an MFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT in 2004. McInnes was awarded a PhD (Fine Art) at the Wits School of the Arts, University of Witwatersrand in 2021. McInnes lives in Cape Town and works between Cape Town and Johannesburg.

McInnes has received numerous awards including the Mixed Media category prize on the M-Web New Signatures Competition in 2000, a National Arts Council scholarship in 2003, and she was selected for the Pro Helvetia Arts Council of Switzerland Artist’s Residency programme in 2004. McInnes won the Sacatar-Spier Contemporary Fellowship Award 2010. In 2011, McInnes (in collaboration with film-maker Peter Goldsmid) was a finalist in the inaugural Johannesburg GoodPitch² Documentary Film-making Competition. McInnes was the Kunstraum Sylt Artist’s Residency award winner for 2012. Her work is in numerous public and private collections both in South Africa and abroad.

McInnes’ work has been extensively reviewed including: Art South Africa (2005), Financial Mail (2005); Art South Africa (2014), Tagesspiegel (2015), City Press (2016). McInnes’ work is also addressed in academic papers including: Recycling the Apocalypse by M. Titlestad in Art South Africa (2012); The Logic of the Apocalypse: A Clerical Rejoiner by M. Titlestad in Safundi: The Journal of SA and American Studies (2013). Images of McInnes’ art appear on the covers of English Studies in Africa, Volume 56(2) (2013); Volume 58(1) (2015); Volume 58(2) (2015) and Volume 59(2) (2016). McInnes’ practice is profiled in the art book August House is Dead, Long Live August House! by Kim Gurney (2017).

McInnes has curated a number of group exhibitions including A Legacy of Men at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2007; Domestic at GoetheonMain in Johannesburg in 2009 (co-curated with Melissa Goba); Ecotopian States at the University of Johannesburg Gallery in 2010; A Brick Wall: rape and the criminal justice system at Constitution Hill in 2010; and When Tomorrow Comes at Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg &  Michaelis Galleries in Cape Town in 2016 (co-curated with Michael Titlestad & Jyoti Mistry).