Gallery MOMO will present Surrogate Emotions, the debut solo exhibition by South African artist Blessing Blaai, opening on Saturday, 22 August 2026.
Following Blaai’s presentation at EXPO CHICAGO 2026, the exhibition marks a significant moment in the artist’s developing practice. It brings together a new body of work created during his residency with Gallery MOMO, examining the ways emotions are constructed, remembered and represented.
At the centre of Surrogate Emotions is an interest in how feeling can be mediated through memory and environment. Blaai considers the ways these experiences intersect with representation to create what the exhibition describes as emotional surrogates, stand-ins for lived experiences that can be difficult to express directly.
Working across painting and mixed media, Blaai continues to use figuration as a space for psychological and social inquiry. His works render interior states through fragmented and layered compositions, allowing figures and their surrounding environments to become sites where memory, emotion and perception overlap.
The exhibition represents both a continuation and a shift within Blaai’s practice. While Surrogate Emotions consolidates the visual language he has been developing, it also sharpens the conceptual questions that underpin his work.
The presentation comes at an important point in Blaai’s career, following his participation at EXPO CHICAGO 2026 and his residency with Gallery MOMO. His debut solo exhibition offers an opportunity to encounter the artist’s work as a more sustained exploration of the relationship between the internal and external worlds.
Surrogate Emotions opens at Gallery MOMO’s Parktown North space on 22 August and will introduce audiences to Blaai’s latest body of work in what promises to be an important new chapter in his artistic development.
Exhibition Details
Exhibition: Surrogate Emotions
Artist: Blessing Blaai
Opening: Saturday, 22 August 2026
Time: 11am–3pm
Venue: Gallery MOMO, 52 7th Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesburg
Gallery MOMO will also participate in the 19th edition of FNB Art Joburg, presenting a curated selection of contemporary African art at Gallery HUB #5.
