I'm Chad. I make art, direct editorials, and research culture — between Cape Town and Milan.
I grew up in Durban and studied Visual Arts at Stellenbosch, graduating in 2020 during Covid. Since then I've been drawing, shooting editorials for international magazines, and building AnthroWorks — a research practice focused on culture, identity, and how people relate to the spaces around them. The art and the research aren't separate things for me. They feed each other.
Visual Systems Thinking
I think about how things connect visually — across print, digital, physical space. Brand systems, exhibition layouts, campaign identities. It's less about making something pretty and more about building a language that holds together wherever it shows up.
Cultural Analysis
Through AnthroWorks I use anthropological methods to understand what's actually going on — in communities, in cities, in subcultures. What people care about, how culture shifts, where there's a gap between what brands say and what people feel. It's fieldwork meets strategy.
Creative Direction
I've directed editorials for GQ, Glamour, and KLuK CGDT — casting, locations, styling, post — the whole thing from concept through to the final image. I've worked with international designers and companies on finding creative direction practices and locations, shaping every detail from scouting to the final cut. I like the control, and I like when something unexpected happens on set that's better than what I planned.
Art Direction
For me, art direction is more of a questioning — it's where my expressive, intuitive drawing practice meets the bigger questions about culture, identity, and place. That's where AnthroWorks comes in. The artwork leads into the research and the research leads back into the art. It's not separate — it's the same inquiry, just expressed through different channels.
Fashion & Styling
I style for editorial, campaign, and runway — pulling from SA designers, European houses, vintage. For me clothing isn't decoration, it's character. What someone wears tells you who they are, where they're from, what they believe. I take that seriously.
Brand Strategy
I have extensive knowledge in developing brands and their identities — building brand guides, consulting with companies on evaluating trends, shaping identities, and refining outputs. Through AnthroWorks I bring that together with real cultural observation — not trend reports, not guesswork. Positioning, identity, audience understanding. The stuff that makes work land because it's true.
Media & Production
I spent three years at Louw Kötze doing production for fashion, film, and design — sourcing, budgets, timelines, international coordination. From there I moved into creating commercial TV production and executive producing work with Euroconnection across Cape Town and Lisbon. I'm also an international model, which means I'm not just behind the camera — I'm in the industry itself, understanding it from the inside. I know what things cost, who to call, and how to move between continents to get it done.
Social Research
Fieldwork, interviews, observation. My thesis on Caboodle was ethnographic research into queer community spaces in Cape Town, and I've continued that work through AnthroWorks — looking at rave culture, digital identity, how people build belonging. Being an international model is part of the research too — I'm inside the fashion and media industry, studying its culture, power dynamics, and social systems firsthand. The research feeds the art and the art feeds the research.
Experience
Founder — AnthroWorks
My cultural research practice. We look at how people, places, and systems shape each other — through advisory work, applied research, and creative projects. I started it because I believe culture is something you can study and something you can build.
Creative Direction & Modelling — Indastria Model Milano
Working with photographers and fashion houses across Italy and internationally. Shooting editorials, art directing, sourcing talent. Milan opened up a different world for me.
Model — Twenty Model Management
Commercial, runway, and TV work across South Africa. Being on the other side of the camera taught me a lot about presence and how a body holds space — that understanding goes straight into the drawings.
Production — Louw Kötze
Three years doing production for fashion, film, and design. Learned how everything actually gets made — the sourcing, the process, the international partnerships.
Education
Stellenbosch University
Inscape
Where I first learned about colour theory, spatial design, and how design affects how people feel.