South African artist, Orange Farm — printmaking, portraiture, collective memory
Lines built one hatch at a time, until a person looks back at you.
Mohau “Ravaza” Lethae works in cross-hatch and stipple line, mixed media and paint — trained in lino cut and dry point at Artist Proof Studio, and a 2025 Sasol New Signatures finalist at the Pretoria Art Museum.
Diploma in printmaking, 2020 — majoring in lino cut and dry point.
2025 finalist, exhibited at the Pretoria Art Museum.
Facilitates drawing lessons and art competitions for children.
Mohau works between print discipline and paint — the same cross-hatched, hand-built line running through portraits of elders, self-interrogation, and pieces built directly from social commentary and collective memory. He currently lives in Orange Farm, where his mentor, artist Tawanda Mhandu, taught him the value of archiving and making original work.
Selected works
A starting point. The full catalogue includes originals from R700 to R50,000.
Wearable ArtHand-painted garments are in development. Every future piece will be painted individually, numbered, and sold as one-of-one or a small numbered run — never printed.
The next canvas is a T-shirt.
Mohau is developing a small run of manually painted garments — each one an individual artwork on fabric rather than a printed design.
“Through community and love, mountains can be moved.”— from Mohau Lethae's 2025 Sasol New Signatures artist statement
Entered jointly with fellow artist Molefi Sylvester Moorosi as 2025 Sasol New Signatures finalists, this piece grew out of Project Thuthukani, a youth-led effort near Evaton West that turned a longstanding illegal dumpsite into community gardens and small businesses.