Delving into the fantastical world of this boundary-blurring creator of wondrous objects
Atang Tshikare Atang Tshikare is an enigma. Not because he’s cagey or cryptic — minimalist style to create a range that translates mythical conin fact, the chatty South African artist eschews the archetypal cepts into tangible objects. “OKHA showed me what they were persona that goes along with his profession in favour of one of interested in and I said, ‘I can do that, but this is what I want to do,’” unfastened openness. No, Tshikare’s mystery lies in never know- he recalls. “I showed them my designs and they liked the ideas ing what he’ll get into next. His boundless creative energy — which because I had a story to tell. As a business they wanted a product, could be mistaken for childlike wonder if the results didn’t suggest a table with four legs and a flat surface. But what I did with them such a ruminative thought process — takes shape across myriad was something more artistic. If you look at ‘Metsing’, the table, mediums, from ceramics to furniture to sculpture. there are three pieces of glass not exactly the same shape, and it Tshikare started out drawing, following in his father, famed looks South African and good quality, but done by a person, not a political cartoonist Mogorosi Motshumi’s footsteps. “My dad has machine,” he explains. “My work has a personal essence. I give it been an influence on me but I didn’t want to do politics because a feeling first, and I then I think about the secondary thing like the I saw what it did to him with Apartheid,” says Tshikare, referring fact that it’s a chair.” to his father’s brief imprisonment, which took him from the family His most recent design piece, ‘Legae’, resonates on many home. “I was an adventurous type of person. I used to watch car- levels. Resembling two figures embracing each other, as well as toons in the morning and wonder about things that weren’t really the human heart organ, its biomorphic form also takes its cues there. I would make up my own stuff because it’s always easier from the vernacular architecture of the Nguni and Songhai people. and better to live in a fantasy than face the crap that’s around you. “This sculpture is sensual and specially made to be touched, so I love imagining; seeing something new and different.” feel free to move your hands softly across its body, and rub the And for several years that’s exactly what Tshikare did. Working black wood extensions.” at a studio called Zabalazaa Designs, he collaborated across Does Tshikare consider how his own role as a black artist, disciplines to add his illustrations to wallpaper, textiles and originally from Bloemfontein, plays a part in attracting the art sneakers. “Drawing on surfaces was always a passion, but and design worlds to his aesthetic? “The exotic part, I use that, around 2015 I realised I wanted to make stuff myself,” he recalls. I kind of trap people with it,” he says. “I take their perception of “I told my gallery and they hooked me up with design studio and what they imagine a black artist or a South African artist to be foundry Bronze Age, who showed me how to make a sculpture.” and throw them out the window so they don’t know what to think — Like seemingly everything Tshikare does, he went at the opportu- except that they really love what they see.” nity ready to learn but armed with his own vision. But true to his nature, Tshikare also ponders the term that The upshot was on full display at DesignMiami/ 2016, as part defines him. “Each time I work it informs a whole world that I’m of Southern Guild’s showcase. “I never thought it would take off projecting,” he says of his larger plans, which span from making and be a massive thing,” says Tshikare, who acquired the skill hats with craftspeople in Lesotho to creating artworks that would to sculpt mostly for the satisfaction of being able to take his flat be accessible to people with autism. “So it’s easiest to say creator, narrative drawings and give them three-dimensional scope. But because even when you say multidisciplinary designer, you’re still his bronze, life-sized zoomorphic creatures, which toe the line saying design. And then there’s artist, because I’ve done paintbetween furniture and sculpture, became a focal point of the fair ings and I do drawings, so then where does it go? It gets hella and catapulted this creative polymath into a new artistic category. confusing for people. I think the word that I’ll stick with is creator.” His prowess for large-scale works quickly garnered attention And we’ll stick with him, too, wherever his adventures take us. back home. Renowned South African interiors firm OKHA tapped Tshikare to collaborate on a three-piece, limited-edition furniture (Opposite right) LEGAE Photography HAYDEN PHIPPS for SOUTHERN GUILD. collection. Truly working together, they abandoned the brand’s (Opposite bottom) KAGGEN for OKHA Photography PETE MALTBIE.
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Words KAREN DAY Photography KOPE FIGGINS
NATAAL
