• Q: Your art is heavily influenced by the style of “portière”. Can you say why this style has influenced your artistic practice?
     
    A: There are those wooden curtains that separate the kitchen from the lounge and I had this in my home growing up. If I look back to consider what inspired me to use this technique, I think throughout my youth I interacted with these curtains as a piece of art and it has a heavy influence on my work today. However, I wanted to innovate the style, make it more detailed because the curtains  just had simple designs. That is why I say my artworks are more influenced by portière. 
     
    Q: Your mother was an art teacher. In what way has she influenced your career path in the visual arts? 
     
    A: My mother has influenced my career path in every way because she was the one who introduced me to art. When I was young, around 10 years old, I experienced a deep loss. During that time I fell into a depression.  As an art teacher my mother brought home her art materials and I began helping her on her art projects. I was assisting her for the next day of her classes. So she had a heavy influence on me at the beginning and ever since. However, my mother actually discouraged me from studying art. She told me that one does not study art, you develop art, that you cannot go to an art school and just expect to be an artist. She said art is about development, it is more of a personal thing. So if I look at how I was introduced to art, it was more fluid, more of a healing process. Even today, art is therapeutic to me, it gives me a sense of balance.
     
    Q: Your art medium is rather distinct – utilising recycled materials and beads to create very detailed portraits. What was the inspiration for your art medium?
     
    A: Beads are not manufactured in Africa, but in Europe and when they arrive in Africa, they become spiritual. In some cultures beads express love and in others they express royalty. Sometimes for medication and for design. Beads are more African when they come to Africa. This idea of beads, according to my research, is that beads were originally African and the Europeans came to Africa and saw that our beads are made from genuine material, such as ivory and stone. Hereafter they decided to make beads with glass and plastic, but here in Africa, we did not have those materials. So when they bought them in Africa, it was cheap and available and in exchange they wanted to take our livestock. After this we had to make something with these beads that initially had no purpose. So there is heritage in wearing beads. So I use beads to show what it is to convert a waste material into something organic; it's about bringing the beads to life.
     
    Q: Your art medium is a meticulous and labour-intensive process that serves as a metaphor for the collective experience of the African community. Can you please elaborate on this?
     
    A: I consider each bead as an individual, each bead represents a person, so the arrangement and organisation of a string of beads forms a group, a bigger picture of a community working together. If you remove one string, or place one string incorrectly, the picture is incomplete, so this shows that we need each other. My artwork is based on a common goal, with each bead playing its part as each individual plays a part. This is where the idea of community comes from. We tend to see greater results if we work together and this is how I interpret my work. 
     
    Your artworks carry a strong message of sustainability. I have two questions in relation to this. 
     

    • Q: Why have you incorporated a message of sustainability in your work – as in, what would you say is the importance of sustainability for you, your community, and the planet?

     
    A: We all wish to have a better future and we all know that we won’t have a better future if we continue on as we are - with waste, pollution and mass production. People can ask what is sustainable about my work and the answer is that I can dismantle and reassemble my artwork and make another artwork with that same material, because each string can be untied and the beads can be reused. In this way nothing goes to waste. My work is promoting this idea of ‘green’, keeping it organic. That is why there are elements of green in my work. So when I refer to sustainability, I talk about using and reusing, I talk about saving the Earth. 
     
    • Q: In what ways can art create a dialogue around sustainability, environmentalism and more broadly the threat of climate change? 
     
    A: Art has been used as a promoting tool, as a tool to pass a message. People pay attention when art is present. So as artists we need to take advantage of that to remind them (the audience) that the world is being destroyed and we are all involved. There are people that do research about how things are going right now and how things will be. It is just not out in the media because it will disturb businesses, but as artists, we are not paid to stay silent, we are paid to speak and pass the message to the people. Sustainability should be an idea that rises in every artists’ work because we are going through the climate crisis as we speak. The climate crisis is one of my main worries, that is why there is always green in my work, because green means and brings life on its own, there is development where there is green. 
     
    Q: A prominent theme in your work is African identity and the celebration of diversity. Why have you chosen these particular thematic concerns? 
     
    A: I am still of the belief that African identity is lost and I am trying to bring it back. It is not that I am choosing to depict a certain race or identity, I am just bringing the African identity back to show the world. The recent themes that I have been working with are African kids. To me, I want to say to the world that African kids are presented in an unpleasant way. When people think about African kids, they visualise kids that are hungry, dirty, malnourished, wearing  So I want to erase these false  ideas that have been selectively chosen. It is rare that you choose images of well-raised children. So recently I have been wanting to promote the idea to the world that African kids are clean and beautiful. I want to show the green around them, the resilience because African kids are strong despite the oppression and mistreatment they are subjected to, they continue to smile. I want to portray them as powerful as I can, because they are powerful, growing in these harsh environments.
     
    Q: Your work pivots on the link between the individual and community and broader human experience. This is evident in the use of small beads (which I interpret as representing the individual), coming together to form a coherent image (which I interpret as representing a collective, a community). What then would you say are your thoughts on communitarianism, particularly within an African context? 
     
    A: The word ‘communitarianism’ is based on living together and everyone playing his or her part in a particular community. If you bring that word back to my work, then every bead plays its own part in this community, so the idea of self-interest is absent. I see it as a commitment to play your part in the community. In Africa, I would say that we have lost our sense of community, but not entirely because there are  still people seeking a sense of community. However it does not help that we are living in a capitalist society that says ‘save your own skin’ and ‘don’t worry about your neighbour, rather worry about yourself’. So it is competition that makes us lose communitarianism because we all want to be the best, to be seen and important. We end up being in a rat race. 
     
    Q: The colours of your work speak about the relation between humans and the natural environment – often featuring shades of green, black, and red. Can you please elaborate on this?
     
    A: As i have already said, green is organic, nature comes to mind. When you are an artist, you tend to always think of the palette that you are going to use - such as which colours will compliment one another. Even if you think of an idea, you have to think of the arrangement of colours. My palette right now is more green, red and black, with black being more of a background. I use red to give a sense of fire, a burning feeling, mystery, camp and as a point of focus. It is using colours to speak and feel the emotion that I feel. So my art is an expression of myself; I want you to see what I see.