Michael Selekane
“… Kids are now getting down with gun
crowds war zones, no homes, ain’t it time to get the dug up bones? Brothers and
sisters put yourself in the picture, this time you know a revolution is the
only way we can change.” -Jason Kay
Michael Tshepho Selekane’s artistic practice has always been rooted in social commentary, somehow managing to bypass the expected subject matter of drawing cartoon characters as a youth in favour of depictions of friends, family members and classmates. His documentation of the world around him has become a lifelong engagement; with Selekane constantly looking to improve upon earlier renderings of places and spaces.
Selekane’s acrylic and oil paintings of
selected locations have a familiarity to them and suggest that these are not
merely spaces which this artist has stumbled upon, but rather are locations he
has intimate knowledge of. Whether these readings of his scenes are encouraged
through engaging with a medium which speaks of a time period divorced from our
current digital age of crisp, sometimes sterile, documentations. Selekane’s
works buck any trends of contemporary norms of daily life artistic depictions
as he opts instead, for a layered grittier and rawer aesthetic which speaks
more succinctly to daily lived experiences. The often texturized and misty
portrayal of his scenes may find Selekane easy bracketed into the same mould of
artists such as Sekoto and Pemba, but this Michael Selekane embraces, admitting
that this is in many way purposeful as he questions how, if at all, members of
the communities he represents actually feel the changes of post and pre
Apartheid. Selekane’s scenes are political spaces fueled by the whispered angst
of a marginalized population. Clues to Selekane’s political undertones exist in
what he chooses to depict and how that subject is presented to us - a cramped
shack interior is emphasized through the use of his composition and framing
devises, whilst an unassuming township street scene is draped with a light
misty blanket, even his rural landscapes appear to be suffocated and not
allowed space to breathe. If the aforementioned shack interior can be
understood to be a commentary on systemic poverty, its polar opposite depiction
of the rural setting should in all accounts speak of abundance. However
Selekane subverts this expectation once again through his manipulation of his
composition. In this instance the promise of tall grasses in the foreground
from rolling on endlessly are tamed by presence of a wall of houses which
prevent us from seeing anymore of the landscape. This could possibly allude to
an ever increasing need to have an equivalent demographical representation
ownership of land, or perhaps an interpretation of the psychological effects an
urban city life has on those like Michael Selekane, who once lived in vast
rural environments. His kasi street scenes with their dusty fog alludes
to the time period when fog of tear gas was married to the air during the fall
of Bophutotswana where political unrest followed Nelson Mandela’s release.
Even though there exists a sense of disease in the works depicted by this artist, there remains a sense of normality in these portrayals of daily life that is in all accounts business unusual for the masses of Mzanzi. Michael Tshepho Selekane’s creations are beautifully vibrant reminders of starkly grotesque daily realities. These works are in essence silent screams reminding us to look more keenly at the worlds, spaces and places we find ourselves in.
