Painting the realities of black people on a canvas of pride

[00:00:02]I'm a visual artist from a small town in the Eastern Cape called Idujwa. So, the way in which I look at my art is I've built a visual language that lives in [music] different spaces. It lives in paintings, it lives in material [music] which would be clothes, rags.

[00:00:23]And what inspires my work is where I come from, how I grew up, the people I grew up with. I come from a very culturally or traditionally um fed background that when I started meeting other people who I assumed knew and understood the things that [music] I knew and understood, I just I realized that there were gaps here and there and my gift is art. So, what >> [music] >> I am trying to do with my work is to some degree teach and create awareness of who I am, where I come from, >> [music] >> and the practices that my people do. So, I grew up Idujwa and a village called Ingwane, >> [music] >> which is where my parents are from. A lot of my work is inspired by Ingwane, which [clears throat] is the village in Willowvale. When I was younger, my father always used to make sure that we learned a lot in as far [music] as culture and tradition is concerned, right?

[00:01:22]And there was a there's a and you you only start realizing this when you move to like a Joburg, you move to [music] a PE, which I went to school in PE, that there's a lack of I don't want to say humanity, but for lack of a better term, humanity >> [music] >> in how people interact. So, when you start missing that, you start wanting to see that in the work that you create. And for me, all I'm trying to do is cuz my main thing is to [music] create art shows black people from a position of pride.

[00:02:03]So, what I'm doing is I'm creating products >> [music] >> that tell our stories. So, when you buy the rug, it's a rug of someone who might look like your grandma. It's a rug that tells a specific story. An example of this is I created a range of rugs that talked about the relationship between a grandchild and a grand mother. To be more specific, right? And we've all experienced that.

[00:02:29]So, now if I'm able to capture that artistically, then you I'm doing my job. If I'm able to in a on it on a on a on a shirt, on a t-shirt, on a jacket, take this black face, put it onto this t-shirt, there's a level of pride that that gives you, right?

[00:02:48]>> [music] >> And even the work that I paint, same thing, you know, where it's like, "Okay, you're buying this thing because you feel like it represents you." As much as I want to show black people in positions of somewhat power, I still also want to show the realities.

[00:03:04]There's a lot happening in the country.

[00:03:06]I can't be stuck in this world of mine of looking at black people like this.

[00:03:12]>> [music] >> I also need to somewhat reflect all everything that I see. I am at a point in my life where it's like, "I'm looking at creating work that directly talks to uh issues in the country. So, I'm [music] trying to further my education so that I can teach number one. And the teaching that I'm trying to do is teaching people about who they are, the power that [music] who you are has, and how much you can impact the world. Obviously, this is within the confines [music] of creativity and somewhat culture and tradition, right?

[00:03:50]And the legacy of the work that I I have created up until this point would [music] be I was a person who loved being black, who loved being closer, who loved being South African.

[00:04:04]And I showed that in the work I created.