Tsholo "Splash" Motong lives in Soweto, South Africa.
Soweto is home to more than 1.2 million black South Africans speaking Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho, Setswana, Tshivenda, and many other local languages. Soweto was also in the middle of the struggle against the South African white-minority apartheid in the 1970s.
Local scenes from Soweto inspired Tsholo's work.
Sometimes, his work is about the local entrepreneurs of Johannesburg (or "Jozi" as locals call it), street vendors with babies on their backs.
Sometimes, it is about local Kofifi jazz musicians who try to bring back their culture and music from the times before the apartheid regime.
Sometimes, he paints African healers and goddesses from the Zulu people of South Africa, who were called "witch doctors" by the Christian settlers.
Sometimes, it is the scenes in Soweto before local elections, with all the money thrown by the candidates to win over the locals.
But in addition to storytelling, Tsholo's medium is so uniquely African. For many of his paintings, he collects unique African fabrics from different parts of Africa and then creates fabric collages from them. His colorful fabric mosaic tells us a story of the rich and colorful history of South Africa.
See Tsholo "Splash" Motong work in person at our opening reception on Saturday, August 6th.
and visit our virtual exhibit:
https://www.arthousesf.com/pages/tsholo-motong-proud-and-beautiful-virtual-exhibition
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