Athi-Patra Ruga (b. 1984; Umtata, South Africa) is one of the few artists working in South Africa today, whose work has adopted the trope of myth as a contemporary response to the post-Apartheid era. Ruga creates alternative identities and uses these avatars as a way to parody and critique the existing political and social status quo. Ruga’s artistic approach to creating myths and alternate realities is in some way an attempt to view the traumas of the last 200 years of colonial history from a place of detachment – at a farsighted distance where wounds can be contemplated outside of personalized grief and subjective defensiveness.

The philosophical allure and allegorical value of utopia has been central to Ruga’s practice. His construction of a mythical metaverse populated by characters which he has created and depicted in his work have allowed Ruga to create an interesting space of self reflexivity in which political, cultural, and social systems can be critiqued and parodied. Ruga has used his utopia as a lens to process the fraught history of a colonial past, to critique the present, and propose a possible humanist vision for the future.

Athi-Patra Ruga’s most recent solo exhibitions include Amadoda on the Verge (2024), presented at BKhz gallery in Johannesburg and In Travesti (2021), presented at the Eva Presenhuber Gallery in New York. Other recent exhibitions and performances include: iiNyanga Zonyaka, Norval Foundation, Cape Town and Interior/ Exterior / Dramatis Personae, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, followed by his acclaimed show Of Gods, Rainbows and Omissions at Somerset House, London.

Selected group exhibitions and performances include: In Us Is Heaven (2025) at Southern Guild Los Angeles, California, TRULY RURAL (2024) at the Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Italy, Significant Other (2024) at WITW x Krone in Tulbagh, Cape Town, This is Not Africa – Unlearn What You Have Learned (2021) at the Aros Museum in Denmark, Kiss My Genders (2019) at Haywood Gallery in London, Ravelled Threads (2018) at Sean Kelly Gallery in Seattle, Art Afrique (2017) at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, Women’s Work (2017) at the IZIKO South African National Gallery in Cape Town, Over the Rainbow (2016) at Performa 17 in New York, An Age of Our Own Making (2016) at Holbaek, Denmark, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community (2014) at the Boston Centre for the Arts, Boston, Public Intimacy (2014) at the SFMOMA, San Francisco, AFRICA: Architecture, Culture and Identity (2015) at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, African Odysseys (2015) at The Brass Artscape in Brussels, The Film Will Always Be You: South African Artists on Screen (2015) at the Tate Modern in London, Making Africa (2015) at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and Imaginary Fact (2013) at the South African Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale.