Soweto
Tsholo Motong lives in Soweto township, Johannesburg, South Africa. Soweto is home to more than 1.3 million black South Africans speaking Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho, Setswana, Tshivenda, and many other local languages.
Short for South Western Townships, Soweto was created in the 1930s as temporary housing for black laborers who worked in the gold mines and other industries in the city of Johannesburg. The white-minority led government forced black people to relocate to Soweto during apartheid away from the city center.
In the 1970s, Soweto became the epicenter of the struggle against the South African white-minority apartheid. It is also the only place in the world with two Nobel Prize winners, human rights activists Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
Soweto has always influenced the country through politics, sports, music, and culture. Local scenes from Soweto inspire Tsholo's work.
Tsholo "Splash" Motong
Technique
Fabric Collage
For his artwork, Splash collects fabric from different tribes and cultures in Africa. He then cuts them out in a unique mosaic fashion and glues them to canvas. Each portrait is created from hundreds of oddly shaped pieces of patterned fabric.
Shweshwe Textiles
Tsholo "Splash" Motong extensively uses traditional African fabric in his artwork.
Shweshwe fabric is a printed, dyed cotton fabric widely used in Lesotho and South Africa. Originally dyed indigo, the fabric is now manufactured in a variety of colors with intricate geometric patterns.
Shweshwe fabric has a fascinating history. In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) shipped goods from East Asia to Europe through South Africa. Dutch settlers in South Africa purchased the famed naturally dyed indigo fabric made in India and Bengal.
In the 1840s, French missionaries gifted the Basotho Chief, King Moshoeshoe I indigo-printed cloth. Extremely pleased, the King endorsed the fabric, and it spread in popularity throughout the Sotho and Zulu inhabitants. The name ‘shweshwe’ derives from its royal influencer, King Moshoeshoe.
South African Music
Amapioano, a Zulu or Xhosa word loosely translated to "the pianos", is a subgenre of house music that emerged in South Africa in the mid-2010s. It is a hybrid of deep house, jazz, and lounge music characterised by synths and wide percussive basslines.
Kofifi Jazz, Splash's favorite, is South African Jazz that was popular in Sophiatown (Kofifi), a suburb of Johannesburg. Sophiatown was a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid, It produced some of South Africa's most famous writers, musicians, politicians and artists.
Explore our favorites below or here's a full playlist.
Artworks in our exhibit
Are we really free
New day new work on Freedom Day ya masimba,
another excuse for lethargic intoxication from cheap alcohol & fake drugs,
as politicians are real thugs with cold hugs
are we really free or just dom,
free from insanity like a cashless society enslaved to reality,
economic emancipation remain pipe dreams unless its politically connected
masses deported into ghetto overcrowding
forever waiting while praying for a heavenly messiah who was never a king
By Splash Motong
Within Logic
Within logic of reason during any rainy season a statistic of government's social responsibility school dropped out due to underage teenage pregnancy from a low level redundancy a ghetto diary from a daily misery
By Splash Motong
Cold and Wet
Latest incubated with much debated till depleted
cold & wet like a sleek shark from the icy Arctic,
in darkness it shall remain as another social statistic
By Splash Motong
Cousin of Death
Sleep is the cousin of death,
wake up or keep dreaming coz we bring nightmares to reality,
as we bid farewell to one artistic genius of a Supamega, your metaphorical play on figures of speech to beat sampling
made u cut above the rest
*disclaimer this ain't AKA's portrait
By Splash Motong
JOHANNESBURG AND SOWETO
Yet, Tsholo always remains very true to his home.
His love and appreciation for the people of Soweto is so evident in his work. His paintings exude so much warmth, subtle humor and empathy.
"Election time is near. Politicians will be canvassing in dirty, sewer infested streets of ghetto camps.
The ruling party has made poverty it's meal ticket, using relief grants, food parcels to bait the clueless voting fodder.
Rampant HIV infested teenage pregnancy, cheap drug abuse, casual to normal petty hardcore crimes range from electricity theft but robbery, rape & murder are daily activities. Faster than hijacking & bolder than cash heist, it's the urban ghetto jungle where every man for himself.
Poverty for us all."
Night Shift
New day new work away from the night shift under a dingy bridge, ethanol & narcotics on the binge magosha wa Jozi as she makes any pozi cosy cost of living as high as multiplied transactions deductible by dwindling clients, OnlyFans & strip clubs is where Ace of Spades breaks hearts popping purple pills on pink hills, like tulips from the Red Light District in a cannabis coffee shop with much love from Amsterdam
By Splash Motong
DabulaManzi
The DabulaManzi water crosser is part of the African spirituality doctors, the belief on ancestors.
This series is about African spirituality. The old word used to be "witch doctors" but now it's sangoma. Some call it voodoo but it's more like ancient African spirituality before Christianity was introduced to Africa.
sangoma, highly respected healer among the Zulu people of South Africa who diagnoses, prescribes, and often performs the rituals to heal a person physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.
By Splash Motong
Uncertainty
Uncertainty turning into constant reality, artery piercing to thick lobes of lymph nodes, sickness from insanity psyche sensitivities of split personalities
By Splash Motong
Turquoise
A fresh produce of old money generational wealthfortune dares his tactics deadly with stealthchaffuer driven to private education estatesa profitable professional portfolio permits his entry into coffers of the state
By Splash Motong
Manifestation of Confusion
Latest incubation popped into a manifestation of confusion without social cohesion,
no solution to economic dispensation
cost of living coupled with inflation forever inclines insufficient funds as card declines
numbers never make sense like shallow pockets full of cents
keep the change but spare the range
By Splash Motong
But with everything that he sees in his daily life, Splash cannot escape the natural beauty of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa and Africa. He sees amazing beauty in everything and recreates this beauty with his own unique vision and character.
"Jozi my pozi with views that are cozy,
from the leafy northern suburbs purple haze hues never disturb,
memories of lavender plantations persist, lilac littered leaves resemble flowers,
it never rains but pours purple showers,
avenue after boulevard the hard tarmac is polluted
by a specific soft bloom which always require the broom,
Jacaranda my city from Tshwane to Jozi
u make summer special..."
By Tsholo "Splash" Motong
