Kemaketse picks brush decade later

More than a decade after throwing away his paintbrush to chase other adventures of life, reinvigorated fine artist, Kedirile Kemaketse has decided to answer his calling. The visual artist who decided to pick up his pencil and brush last year during the last lockdown told Arts & Culture this week that he had always been an artist from a young age.

He said now he is taking his craft seriously no wonder he quit his job earlier this year just to focus on art. Kemaketse also said for him art is a spiritual calling so even if one tries to walk away art will always come back.

“We were locked in last year and this artistic excellence in me taught me that we are locked but not bound. Art has a way to free us from confinement so this pandemic situation helped me to go back to the way I once was,” he highlighted.

Kemaketse stated that as he draws or paints it gives him sanity, peace and essence. “Some say my art is very spiritually but art is like that, it is therapeutic.

This is abstract art and it has got a way of speaking and giving the artist freedom,” he further explained.

Explaining the meaning behind one of his paintings titled ‘Memories of my childhood’, Kemaketse said he was painting a combination of the past and present. “The painting depicts the first house my mother built with her own hands so it has got so much memories. The use of color there also shows that it is daytime and nighttime at once.

In this COVID-19 pit we find ourselves in the dark but there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he revealed. ‘’He also explained that his abstract art talks to him first before it can talk to the viewer,” he clarified. He said all the mixed media he brings into his artworks helps him to go beyond his comfort zone.

In future he said, ‘’he wants to host his solo exhibition so that people can see what he is capable of. “I want to bring the real me’’.