Born 30 years ago in the second city of Botswana, Francistown, Smarts has always known that he was an artist albeit from a different persuasion.

While many artists would rather stick to the traditional ways of creating works, the young man has this to say, "Most artists are stereotyped and they cannot think outside the box.

"They use elements that are already known and this works against them," he said ,  adding that, however, he admires a lot of his colleagues and does not wish to undermine them in anyway.

While this might not go down well with some individuals, one can safely assume that given the fact that the artist is from another discipline that some traditionalists shun, it is understandable.

As it has been already mentioned of commonp that generally painters and sculptures are normally regarded as 'the cream of the crop' among artists but it looks like people from the alternative persuasions have made broken this perception.

One of the people who perhaps set the trend is Neo Matome-Harun who won the Thapong Artist of the Year award in 2008 for her outstanding digital print pieces and now Smarts has followed suit with his unnamed digital print piece.

Following the theme of the competition, the artist introduced an element of culture by designing a set of traditional game known as mmele using telecommunication icons as pieces as opposed to stones.

The mmele 'board' itself is a contemporary one in that it is 'drawn' on a hard surface. The 'channels' on the mmele board are designed such that they could be interpreted to be meaning the links to different worlds that BTC has brought about with their telecommunications initiatives that include the Internet, cellular and landline phones.

The web on top represents the BTC and its sister companies, beMobile and Botsnet.
According to Smarts, black, the dominant colour in the piece, represents black culture and the people of Botswana.

The graphic designer said that it took him about a week to complete designing the piece on a computer.

When he was done with the design, he printed the work on an A3 paper and mounted it on a board, making it ready for presentation and the rest, as they say, is history.

Commenting on Smarts' win, the coordinator of Thapong Visual Arts Centre, Reginald Bakwena says that people from other disciplines of the visual arts must be embraced as well.

"Thapong must be seen to be growing and embracing other disciplines of the visual arts which would most certainly put the centre on the same platform with other international art entities." Bakwena further says that they as Thapong are going to work hard to promote other disciplines of the arts by including them in all the competitions they run.

Smarts, who originally comes from the village of Nshakashogwe says that while growing up he knew that he was creative.

Unlike most artists, he never studied art as a subject at school, instead he did design and technology.

"I always liked creating things out of nothing as opposed to just painting, that's why I was more interested in design and technology," he says.

After finishing his secondary education, Smarts went to read for advanced diploma in multimedia at Limkokwing University in Malaysia art and technology after which he went to Australia to study for a degree.

When he came back home, he became a fulltime principal lecturer at Limkokwing University of Creative technology in the Botswana campus.

Of his job he asserts, "I am keen to work in an environment which involves all aspects of multimedia."

Some of the modules that he has delivered at the university include digital imaging, sound production and technology, animation and modeling, creative studies, presentation and research study skills.

There is no doubt that the university has been impressed by the efforts of the artist because it has given him an in-house award for 'pioneering leadership' at the institution.

Apart from lecturing at the university, he freelances his services for corporate clients that in the past included Air Botswana and PulaHoldings for whom he did animated logo sequences.

This year, he has produced a drama competitions DVD for Botswana Training Authority (BOTA) and the Department of Arts and Culture.

Smarts is of the view that the visual arts are growing in Botswana and that artists need to explore new concepts and broaden their scopes.  The artist says that in his spare time, he enjoys reading popular multimedia magazines to glean creative ideas as well as experimenting with new softwares.

He also likes to compose his own digital music using the latest softwares available.  
"I love spending time with friends, dining out and attending theatre productions," says the soft-spoken artist.