Art in Focus
A podcast series on the dynamic and growing African art market
An Investec Focus Radio 5-part series hosted by Tristanne Farrell, a senior wealth manager at Investec Wealth & Investment International, with an out-of-control passion for art.
Ahead of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2025, Farrell chats with art collectors, investors, professors and emerging artists about the current state of the African art scene.
Whether you're an art novice or a seasoned collector, this podcast is for you.
Episode 1 | Pulse of the African art market
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Listen to Hannah O'Leary, Sotheby's head of Modern and Contemporary African Art and Pule Taukobong venture capitalist and avid art collector discuss what's behind the African art market's significant growth, the shifting trends, female artists' dominance, where to source art, pricing and who you should be paying attention to right now.
Read the transcript
Episode 2 | Art as an investment: A collector's take
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Tristanne Farrell, chats to Cumesh Moodliar, the CEO of Investec Bank SA, and Itumeleng Merafe, head of Investec Private Bank on how to approach art as an investment. The conversation covers liquidity considerations, depressed market conditions, tax benefits and the role of primary and secondary markets. We also get a sense of what's behind their mutual love for art, and where it all started. Read the transcript.
Episode 3 | NextGen art: Cultivating talent and accessibility
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In this episode, we hear from young award-winning artist Boemo Diale and art journalist and curator Sean O’Toole about the future face of African art. They discuss Boemo's rise to fame, the role of art fairs in promoting underrepresented artists, and the importance of established artists supporting newcomers. Read the transcript.
Episode 4 | A lens on photography as art
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Tristanne Farrell chats to Virginia MacKenny, artist, writer and Emeritus Associate Professor and Vanessa Cowling, artist and part-time lecturer about everything you need to consider when buying photography as part of your art collection. The conversation covers edition sizes, paper quality, provenance and the emerging trends in taking and printing photos. Read the transcript.
Episode 5 | African art's international impact
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In this fifth and final episode of Art in Focus, we hear from two locally based artists, Brett Seiler and Sanell Aggenbach, about how their careers started, how they broke into the international art market, and the influence African art is having on the global art scene. Read the transcript.
Investec has been the proud sponsor of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair for eight years. The fair is the largest contemporary African art fair on the continent, bringing the world to Africa and Africa to the world.
Meet our host | Tristanne Farrel
Tristanne has almost 30 years of experience in the financial services sector. She moved from Cape Town to study and work in Dublin, Ireland.
After five years at Bloxham Stockbrokers, she returned home to Cape Town and worked for HSBC as a stockbroker. In 2001 she moved to Investec and has been with the firm for over 22 years, working as a Senior Investment manager and team leader.
Her passion for art started as a creative outlet from finance. She did take art as a subject at school but says she wasn’t overly talented but had a fascination for art history.
She purchased her first work from a small gallery in Bree Street over 20 years ago. Today her passion for art sees her travelling around the world visiting all sorts of fairs. She readily admits that her passion has now developed into an art addiction!
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