Artist Banele Khoza is firmly in control of his own genius

When I enter Banele Khoza's studio in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, I'm confronted with an idyllic, expected, timeless art studio scene.

Khoza, brush in hand, is busy with a live portrait. His subject is a young man balanced on a stool in front of an easel. Khoza hasn't set this up for my benefit. Nor is this scene representative of his daily life as an artist. He may be a traditional artist in the sense that he works with traditional media (acrylic, paper, canvas) and pursues portraiture, but he is utterly an artist of his time.

He admits he has until recently dedicated more time to social media than painting. That was until he heard Kim Kardashian spends only 30 minutes a day on Instagram. "I couldn't believe it, it changed my life."

As the number of followers, likes and dominance in social media realms has become the yardstick against which influence, relevance and success is measured, Khoza is not alone in struggling to arrive at a work/social media balance.

It's hard to think of his practice flourishing without social media. His independence - he isn't represented by a gallery - is made possible by it. It has enabled him to market his art and gallery and establish his brand.

Many artists are on Instagram or other social media sites, but largely they're either taking banal studio pictures or shots of their artworks. Few use these tools to establish an identifiable "persona" and one that shares a direct conceptual link with the content of their art.

The texts or speech bubbles with the floaty inchoate male figures that define Khoza's art refer to statements, questions and anxieties that plague the artist or the subjects, relationships he depicts. It's in the style of the confessional-type statements you might find in your Facebook newsfeed. His art is about vulnerability and exposure, being heard, the cost of doing so. The lines between Khoza's FB or Insta feeds and his art are blurred.

Art has always offered a confessional space; Khoza has dragged this function into a new age. The interdependence between his art and social media content has solidified his presence, his voice. Not that his voice is a confident, or unyielding one. Its degree of uncertainty makes it valuable. He admits to feeling lonely, confused and is always asking questions.

"For me it's always about connecting to other people. I always wanted to connect in an authentic way. I can only be myself."

Unlike other artists who clamour to be represented by a gallery and rely on them to grow their careers, he's opted to do it his way. He has his own gallery, BKhz, and is in control of his image and career. He is the first "post-gallery" artist in the city. He defies the conventional model.

This entrepreneurial bent and determination to navigate his own path can be attributed to his father (now in his mid-80s), who despite not completing his education ran a successful business.

"He kept insisting and speaking about ownership. He kept saying: 'Own your path'."

Khoza's path has been unexpected. Not only has he opted to open his own gallery, where he also promotes the work of other artists, but he has made forays into fields outside art, such as participating in an interior design reality show. He studied fashion before art and is dabbling in that field again too.

Ordinarily any link to the worlds of design are frowned upon in the art world. But as always Khoza doesn't play by the rules and has benefitted from doing so. His studio and gallery bear traces of the stylist's eye - the characteristic millennial pink pervades - and plants and furniture in his studio make it a pleasant space to inhabit. There is an elegance to everything he does - and says.

Despite his aesthetic, it is his disarming honesty that makes him and his art so endearing. This allowed him to tackle such a cliched topic as "love" without it being cheesy.

In the 2018 exhibition, Love, the phrase "I hope you feel the same" appears on a canvas among portraits of naked men. In freely expressing his homosexual identity and "normalising" relationships between men, Khoza has also challenged the dominance of heteronormativity in art - and narratives centred on love, heartbreak, relationships.

It is this aspect of his practice that led to a solo exhibition at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in Cape Town. It was a sort of unprecedented turn; the museum exhibition followed the titular show at Smith Gallery so closely it raised eyebrows. Museum exhibitions are also supposed to be reserved for established mid-career artists with proven records or international weight. The show came under criticism from some of Cape Town's established white elitists but it also gave him a confidence boost.

"I felt I had to do something better (after that show). But what is something better if it's like myself? So I had a huge block for a while."

Fortunately Khoza has overcome this temporary block. It was the guiding words from a former lecturer that loosened his paralysis. "He told us that making art is not a sprint, but a marathon."

Given Khoza's unconventional path, where the finish line might be is anyone's guess.

• Metamorphosis and Zeitgeist are showing at BHkz, Juta Street, Braamfontein. Khoza is the co-curator of the Gallery Lab at this year's Joburg Art Fair in September.