Tsholofelo carves niche in rare screen-printing

GASEBALWE SERETSE
Staff Writer | Friday July 9, 2010 00:00

 

One of them is 25-year-old Thabiso Tsholofelo from Changate village near Nkange, who specialises in screen-printing (a discipline of the arts that is still rare in Botswana) and metal sculpturing.

Like many artists, Tsholofelo realised he was gifted in the arts while still at primary school as his teachers preferred to use him to draw illustrations on the blackboard.

'During study time, instead of reading, I would do a lot of pencil drawings,' reminisces the artist, adding that this impacted his class performance because he only passed his favourite subjects, namely Art and English.

The artist also told Arts & Culture that he was fortunate enough to study art as a subject while doing Standard Seven at Tshiamo Primary School in Gaborone.

Upon completing his primary education, he went to Nanogang Community Junior Secondary School (CJSS) where he continued to do art as a subject.

From Nanogang CJSS, the talented artist then went to Gaborone Secondary School (GSS) where he excelled in Art and English. After finishing his basic education, Tsholofelo could not pursue tertiary education because he only did well in the two subjects so he chose to look for employment.

The young artist got a job in Gaborone with a company called M & S Engineering where he was groomed as a welder among other things.

'I thought to myself, 'maybe I should mix my welding skills with my art' and ever since then I have specialised in metal sculpturing,' Tsholofelo told Art & Culture.

As fate would have it, one day he decided to also venture into fabric-printing given the love that he had for batik.Although he loved batik, he decided to devise his own technique of doing fabric-printing and today, he is one of the most prominent fabric-printing artists in the country.

Some of the hand-made items that this artist produced include eye-catching and colourful aprons, plate mats, tablecloths, table runners, curtains and hangings.

For the artist, a typical fabric-printing day starts with the purchasing of calico cloth, which he mostly uses.  After he has secured the cloth, he would then cut it to the desired size and start hand-painting with his special mix of textile ink, acra fix and a thickener (the mixture makes the paintings to be permanent).  After the cloth has dried, he would then 'treat' it with a hot iron.

Tsholofelo told Arts & Culture that his designs are inspired by everyday events and that he also uses African themes in his works.

'When I was younger, my mother used to make me sweep the yard with a traditional broom and instead of complaining that I was forced to perform a woman's job, I would make some designs on the ground with the broom and these are some of the designs that I used in my works,' the artist said.

Tsholofelo says that whenever he paints a picture on the cloth, he wants it to tell a story and that he prefers to use colours that are popular with African people.

Given the quality of the works that this young artist produces, it is hard to believe that he is self-taught in screen-printing. The artist told Arts & Culture that most of his clients are women whom he says spend better on art than men. However, men seem to prefer his rugged sculptures, which are good for both interior and exterior decorations.

As mentioned before, the adventurous artist also makes interesting items with metal that include braai-stands, lampshades and two-dimension gate decorations and interestingly, he makes all these items in shapes of animals and birds.

Tsholofelo's exquisite artworks are affordable as the cheapest item goes for only P 70 while the most expensive is P 1 800. The artist is considering making life-size sculptures, which would be more expensive.

Tsholofelo says that he joined Thapong Visual Arts Centre this year after learning that they help nurture young talent.  Soon after joining the centre, he applied for a studio and he is currently based there.

Tsholofelo asserts that he is a firm advocate of sobriety and points out that he believes that artists who think they could use liquor and drugs for inspiration are misguided as that could only serve to undermine their careers.

'If you drink alcohol and use drugs, you become slothful and age quickly,' he said echoing government's warning to Batswana.

He says that if people want inspiration, they should consider other alternatives adding that he gets his from listening to different genres of music while busy at work.

Tsholofelo says that he is mostly inspired by local artists like Moses Maaramela, Wilson Ngoni and Joseph Piet who are all well-known Thapong artists.