(Pic: “Untitled” – charcoal and chalk pastel on cotton paper))Exhibition of monoprints and drawings titled “New World” at African Art Centre.
Durban’s African Art Centre will be opening an exhibition of Monoprints and drawings by Mxolisi Sithole titled New World on May 27. The mission of the African Art Centre organisation is to empower young artists from underprivileged communities by offering a platform of exposure through art exhibitions; this exhibition fulfils this undertaking.
Mxolisi Sithole is a versatile young upcoming artist, born and raised at Umlazi Township in Durban. His exhibition displays his creative output and artistry in Monoprint and drawing medium. He works on the 60% fabric paper and the Rosapina fabriano paper with texture that enhances the visual quality of his work. The Monotype printmaking technique combines the ability to produce painterly or linear qualities onto the work and produces a one-of-a-kind print without multiples. Through the Monotype and drawing medium, Sithole achieves an accurate narrative of everyday life, the intimate but intriguing fascinating moments experienced by an ordinary township dweller.
His everyday scenes are dominated by rows of shacks, colourful houses and lines of laundry hung out to dry. Visual memory, crucial to the execution of this body of work manifests in a drawing of a young boy making sketches on paper, a child playing at the park and on the work titled Tea pot. These images point to the ability of our minds to capture information as well as to distort the recollected facts.
The Monoprint and drawing imagery is overlaid with the artist’s fragments from childhood and which give account of his personal identity such as in his works titled I used to be… and Money. He has embarked on personal language at the same time drawing from everyday life and from the media. Both drawings and Monoprints are overlaid with humor and poignancy, every picture tells a story and carries symbolic meaning.
Mxolisi Sithole holds a Fine Art Post Graduate degree from the Durban University of Technology and works predominantly in printmaking and in drawing. The most crucial aspect of his profession is fulfilled through community engagement activities. Sithole works as a Creative Project Coordinator at Umthombo Street Children South Africa. He currently conducts Velobala printmaking Saturday art classes hosted by the Durban African Art Centre while on Sundays he facilitates Monoprint classes to young people at Umlazi from the backroom of his home. This vibrant young artist was awarded the first prize in the Start Nivea Art Award in 2006.
His busy schedule in art industry is motivated by his desire to instill an attitude of interest in visual art in black communities. He hopes to see art appreciated in black communities and to offer art as an alternative income to young unemployed individuals.
The New World exhibition, which has been funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will be opened by Themba Shibase on May 27 at 17h30 at the African Art Centre, 94 Florida Road in Morningside.
Posts
