Franli Meintjes, (b.1982) lives and works in the Free State, South Africa. She is a multi-disciplinary artist practicing in fibre, performance, photography, and installation. Using natural and synthetic thread with punch needle, tufting and knot techniques, Meintjes creates textured figurative and abstract pieces. Her work invites viewers to consider our connection to nature, our yearning for spirituality, and our empathy for one another.

Meintjes earned her BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Free State in 2004. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout South Africa, including at the KKNK, Grahamstown National Arts Festival, Everard Read, CIRCA Cape Town, and the Oude Leeskamer Gallery in Stellenbosch. She gained notable recognition by ranking among the top 10 artists in the Absa L’Atelier Art Competition for two consecutive years in 2013 and 2014, and was a sculpture finalist in the 2018 PPC Imaginarium Competition. Her work can also be found in the National Art Bank collection.

My practice has been dedicated to exploring alternate world-making through fibre. This process has involved working with natural and synthetic yarn and thread, and acrylic paint and fine wire. The extended scope of my material play has involved the transformation of ‘tapestry’; intrinsically linked to narrative, from its often wall-bound rectilinear format to something amorphous and three dimensional.
I am interested in vulnerability, in both a physical and psychological sense. It is something I have been looking at within the context of a magic realist landscape. A realm infused by storytelling and mythology, a place that presents the paradox of both sanctuary and dread and holds for me the complexity of what it means to exist in the world, right now.