A contemporary art gallery displays red fabric installations stretched diagonally across a white floor, anchored at four points. Paintings and sculptures are visible in the background. The room is bright with white walls, large windows, and spotlights on the ceiling.

Jared Leite Residency

Writer, curator and gallerist Jared Leite (b. 1995, Cape Town) will be in residence from October to December 2026.

Leite is the co-founder of Lemkus Gallery, a gallery located in inner-city Cape Town centred on artist residencies and collaborative curatorial projects. With a focus on emerging artists in the South African contemporary arts ecosystem, his curatorial practice draws on postcolonial theory, Afro-Pessimism, institutional critique and the aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition.

Leite’s work includes exhibition-making, art-writing and teaching. Prior to working in the arts, he was a researcher and lecturer working across art history, contemporary curatorial practice and body politics, with a focus on the historical contributions of artists of colour that remain under-theorised within the canon of South African art. 

At Studio Voltaire, Leite will develop Two Tempests: Prison or Hermitage, a research-based project exploring how Shakespeare's play The Tempest (1610–1611), long read as an allegory for European colonialism, has been taken up, inverted and rewritten across literature and visual art.

Working with recurring characters from The Tempest, including Prospero, Caliban, Ariel and Miranda, Leite traces how each text's treatment of power, race and exile plays out across different postcolonial paradigms, drawing a line between Césaire's Martinique and his own Cape Town.

Leite takes this project as a starting point for a wider inquiry into how contemporary artists in postcolonial societies negotiate the tension between resistance and self-reflection. He will conduct site-based research into Shakespeare's legacy and Britain's colonial history in London and the Midlands.

During his on-site residency, Leite will also have  studio-based exchange with Studio Voltaire's community of artists, and dialogue with Studio Voltaire's wider network.

  1. Jared Leite (b. 1995, Cape Town) is a writer, curator, and gallerist with a focus on emerging artists in the South African contemporary arts ecosystem. He is the co-founder, curator, and director of Lemkus Gallery, an archipelagic gallery model in the inner city of Cape Town centred on artist residencies and collaborative projects. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art (BAFA) with a major in printmaking and a Master of Arts in Fine Art by dissertation (MAFA) from the Michaelis School at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

    Leite has a background in teaching art history, contemporary curatorial practice, and body politics. His research is centred on the historical contributions of South African artists of colour, specifically those that have gone undertheorised within the local canon. In terms of research, Leite is interested in and regularly draws from postcolonial theory, Afro-Pessimism, institutional critique, and the aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition.

    His curatorial projects have been featured in several local and international publications, such as Artforum, Art Plugged, ArtThrob, Latitudes Online and the Daily Maverick.

    1. Grammars, 2024. Installation view at Lemkus Gallery, Cape Town, 2024. Image courtesy of Jared Leite and Lemkus Gallery. Photo: Brook Lynn Norkie.
    2. Thero Makepe, 2025. Installation view at Lemkus Gallery, Cape Town. Image courtesy of the artist and Lemkus Gallery. Photo Ezra Kofti
    3. Vusumzi Nkomo, A Garden Of Disorder III, 2025. Installation view at Lemkus Gallery, Cape Town. Image courtesy of Jared Leite, Lemkus Gallery, and Studio Voltaire. Photo: Brook Lynn Norkie.