Elfriede Dreyer is a South African conceptual artist, mentor and curator. She works intermedially in various physical and digital media. She held several solos (SA and France) and participated in group exhibitions at major galleries, museums, universities and art festivals. Her work has been taken up in the public collections of UP, Unisa, Telkom, the DBSA, FNB and various private collections. It is regularly auctioned by Strauss & Co.
After 25 years of full-time teaching at the University of Pretoria and Unisa, she has been affiliated with Unisa as an Extraordinary Professor of Art since 2015. Her doctoral thesis was entitled Dystopia and artifice in late 20th century visual culture. Her MA(FA) dissertation (1992) was entitled A hermeneutic investigation of the ‘parergon’ in artmaking with special reference to Anselm Kiefer.
She is internationally known as a curator and her publications appeared in local and internal academic journals and books, leading to NRF rating.
Besides adjudicating at the national competitions such as the Absa l'Atelier, the Sasol New Signatures and the Portrait Award, she is Vice-President of the South African National Association for Visual Arts.
She founded the CAP Institute for Contemporary Art Practice in 2015 though which she mentors more than 120 artists by way of physical workshops and online art courses.
In 2005 she founded Fried Contemporary Gallery in Pretoria which was sold as a going concern in 2014 and was listed as one of the top ten galleries in the country.
