History of Thapong

Thapong International Artists’workshop Trust was formed in 1989 and established the Thapong Visual Arts Centre 1999 with the aim of promoting visual art in Botswana. The centre among other things, develops contemporary art, helps artists pursue careers in art, educates through artists works by focusing on drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking. The centre strives to encourage the community and aspiring artists to be creative, discover means of self expression and to portray messages by using visual communication. Thapong is also a membership organization. Members meet and interact primarily during art exhibitions and workshops.

 

Thapong runs workshops in different disciplines such as drawings, painting, sculpture, and crafts fairs every year. The 2011 TAYA left me fully inspired to take up the world of art as a career. I now look forward to this year’s awards. Now that I know what to expect from the competitors, my confidence peaks high. While some of the artists were outstanding talented artists, a number were not as impressive but had the potential for improvement. Bottom line, there is talent in Botswana that a great many are not aware of. My talent for instance, is waiting to be unveiled and that’s what 2012 is for.  Below are some of the art works that intrigued me.

CATEGORY: PAINTING

I was more drawned to afrocentric themed pieces. This piece (above) is by artist Thabiso Thekiso who takes his inspiration from what his culture has to offer. One other culture driven artist goes by the name Adrian Ngoma whose work (below) portrays his surrounding which is his African Cultural Inheritance and its originality. Using the glazing technique in his paintings, as well as other experimental effects, below he shows a piece titled Initiation.

This piece (below) is by a self taught artist that is featured in my previous blog entry who goes by the name Thabiso Tsholofelo. What I love about him is, his artwork is not restricted to wall paintings. His specialty is, hand printed African prints and designs inspired by nature. Earlier you saw his work on sneakers but he works on absolutely anything [You name it and it shall be done].

This piece (below) by artist Mogorosi Modisane is titled Stories of the Backyard. His art focuses on experimentation of media and the concept, rather than the usual oil brush cubism approach. Here, he focused on exploring deserted traditional media in cow dung and the experimentation of coffee, salt, linseed oil and ink on Waterford paper.  Center piece below was one of my favorites. Composed of a tiny traditional Tswana (Botswana heritage) 3 legged pot hanging on a burnt slate of wood.

CATEGORY: PHOTOGRAPY

This category failed to impress me as some of the photography were not as creative as artwork should be.  At least I can name two photographers who captivated me. Sipho Omar Hlalela who portrayed motherly love with a picture that says, “Love your child, shower him with the mother love he needs, (whatever the hardships) for tomorrow he could be the leader of a nation”.

Below, Kalayame Fembo shows us that to fight war against poverty is through passing on knowledge to the younger generation in the form of culture. He says, “The ticket to salvation is through a means of ploughing traditional food and feeding on them”. He calls this photo Paint me a rainbow.

Trafficked out of Africa (below) I would say had an interesting concept and of course sends a strong message about the Human Trafficking Issue that some African Countries are facing. Beautiful work by self taught photographerby Batho Motlhanka.

I have always known that artwork costs a fortune, but WOW! The price tags on some of the pieces were ridiculous…leaves me to wonder what price the piece I’m working on will fetch in the market. I’m thinking P8000. Probably too ambitious for an upcoming artist but let’s just wait and see…

At the end of the event, Abednico Sechaba emerged the winner of the TAYA awards taking home 25’000 Pula with an artwork based on child labour.

Interested parties may contact Thapong…