“Art speaks where words can’t explain.” – Threadless artist, Mathiolen.
To Cape Town based artist, Themba Mkhangeli (22) a ballpoint pen symbolized far more than an item on a school stationery list.
A ball point pen had the ability to elicit a kind of healing and was able to convey the South African face/s and narrative through its strokes.
Mkhangeli knew the face of struggle, as do many black children. He knew the feeling of hunger as it seeped through his bones when he tried to sleep. He was required to wake up at 4am without fail to go to school. On better days you go to school and sometimes you just don’t go.
It is these struggles that has shaped many black children, including Mkhangeli. To some black children the struggle was a training ground preparing them for the greater battle ahead.
“A single matress spread on the floor was enough for all of us Bread slices were buttered with iRama And rolled into sausage shapes; We had it with black rooibos, we did not ask for cheese.”
– Koleka Putuma, Collective Amnesia
Mkhangeli remembers his childhood days and his roots in the Eastern Cape province, in a small village called Julukuqu. This is where he discovered his hidden talent. He started dabbling in art at the age of five, but he took it lightly. He thought it was a little stick men drawing, that every child reverts to upon boredom in class.
Only in Grade 6 when he was doing school projects, is when Mkhangeli’s classmates realised that his drawings were not just stick men drawings nor elementary, it was art.
The older children in his class told him that he was a special and that he should pursue a career as an artist. This is where Mkhangeli’s confidence grew and this is at the same time that he used art as a means of storytelling.
During lessons, Mkhangeli started drawing teachers while they were busy teaching. When other boys went to play soccer, Mkhangeli would sit with his pen and paper and start drawing. Little did he realise that he was sketching out his vocation too.
Drawing and art has been a necessary relief through the black struggle. Mkhangeli uses his art as a tool to inspire other aspiring black children and take them off the streets and keep their minds from negativity.
There’s a lot of talent in the dusty streets of our communities, but no one takes initiative to develop young talent and nurture it. Most of the talent dies on the streets.
In most black communities, a man is taught that “Indoda Ayikhali” which means that a man doesn’t cry. This stigma has caused many black men to stifle their feelings. However through art, these stifled feelings are expressed without words or humiliation.
Mkhangeli artwork started making waves within the art industry when he sold his first item of drawing as a call of action. The drawing was about African childhood and black struggle. It was used for a poverty campaign in September 2015.
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Article originally published on TYI, written by Folodi Jane
All images are sourced from Themba Mkhangeli's Facebook.
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