About

Kylie van der Merwe is a South African artist and researcher whose practice operates at the intersection of art and technology. Working primarily with digitally native media, her work explores digital materiality and the ways emerging tools such as augmented reality and virtual environments expand creative expression and reshape how audiences encounter art. Through digital artworks, interactive installations, and augmented paintings, van der Merwe investigates the shifting relationship between the tangible and intangible, often creating works that exist simultaneously in physical and virtual space.

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Van der Merwe’s research centres on the ontology of digital imagery and the phenomenology of digital exhibition spaces. Her work questions the status of digital artworks as primary objects rather than reproductions, and explores how digital environments function as sites of encounter in their own right. This research informs a practice that moves fluidly between microscopic photographic studies of natural materials, 3D digital sculpture, and augmented reality experiences designed to be encountered in situ. Van der Merwe holds a Master of Arts in Visual Arts from Nelson Mandela University. Her master’s research, Reimagining the Archive: Digital Ontology in Contemporary Art-Making, examines the status of digital artworks within contemporary archival and exhibition frameworks.

Over the past decade, van der Merwe’s work has been exhibited in galleries and festivals across South Africa, Europe, and the United States. She was also selected as a finalist in the Sasol New Signatures National Art Competition, one of South Africa’s most prominent platforms for emerging artists. While her current practice is primarily digital, many works are also produced as physical editions, including projected installations, 3D prints, and painted works embedded with interactive augmented reality elements.