Amawele

Themba MKHANGELI

Amawele

Ballpoint on paper

92,5 cm x 136 cm

Biography

Themba Mkhangeli is a multi-award-winning visual artist and environmentalist with a penchant for entomology. He grew up in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, in a small village called Julukuqu. Currently, he is based in Nyanga East, Cape Town. His preferred medium is a ballpoint pen and most of his images capture the human form, particularly portraits. He started making art at the age of five but realised his talent for artmaking in Grade 6 and he has not looked back since.

Synopsis

Amawele is a portrait of twin sisters who reside in the artist’s neighbourhood. This image is a homage to their beauty and innocence, embodied through the unerasable process of ink pen drawing. Although Gender Based Violence inserts unerasable marks on women that hurt and scar them, the unerasable mark-making used in this drawing does the opposite, because it celebrates and honours the beauty of women.  The diamond shape between them is the symbol of beauty he always finds in women, it also creates a balance between the two figures.