Geometry of the African muse
Baba Tjeko has quit his day job — again — to follow his passion, writes Tymon Smith. This time, the artist believes, there’s no turning back
Baba Tjeko, whose work formed part of the inaugural arteBOTANICA event at the Nirox sculpture park in Krugersdorp last weekend, began his career as an illustrator and designer working for various publications and government departments; recently, for the fourth time, he decided to quit his day job and commit himself full time to art.
His experience in advertising and design plays an integral role in the way he sells and positions himself as an artist; he frequently refers to the importance of building his brand.
Tjeko has collaborated with a variety of brands on marketing campaigns that incorporate his art, which is heavily influenced by the Litema tradition of symmetrical Sotho wall art found in Lesotho and parts of the Free State, where he was born.
He says his first encounter with Litema was as a young child living at his grandmother’s house. “Part of the house exterior was plastered with mud and cow dung and Litema patterns were drawn using a fork or a comb.”
Many years later as a student at the National Electronic Media Institute in Johannesburg majoring in advertising, Tjeko decided to focus on Litema for his third-year design project. “I read an article that the art form was dying. The research made me fall more in love with the art form,” he says.
For Tjeko the use of Litema is not simply a matter of appropriating aesthetically pleasing designs.
“According to research, Litema is a dying traditional art form and because it forms part of Basotho history, as a Mosotho I decided to play my part to preserve it by integrating it in my work and reintroducing it as a contemporary aesthetic.”
The use of Litema both in traditional geometric patterned work and in Tjeko’s oeuvre, where it is incorporated into portraits and other illustrations, has, he believes, “contributed greatly to my work”.
“Every time I work I get into a nostalgic mode of remembering and imagining how things were back then; the atmosphere in the villages and rural townships, Basotho women painting Litema on their mud houses, the lifestyle and human values all become part of my head-space during the process.”
He hopes that his use of the tradition allows his work to “exude the same energy and spirit of Basotho that enable people to connect to its historical significance”.
Tjeko says his background in design and commercial illustration allows him to create work that meets the needs of various clients “without compromising the authenticity of the story and my artistic voice”.
Perhaps the most obvious historical influence on Tjeko’s work is legendary Ndebele artist Esther Mahlangu, who he says “transcended boundaries and continues to create deeply traditional work that has strong contemporary relevance”.
There are also the influences of African Modernists such as Gerard Sekoto, George Pemba and Dumile
Feni to be seen in Tjeko’s illustrations, and all of his work is driven by the desire to project a uniquely African aesthetic.
He says that when he began his work as a designer, “it was not easy to find inspiration that was authentically African in the design space, so my early influences were more in music”. He listened to Basotho traditional music, the late Zimbabwean Oliver Mtukudzi, Salif Keita from Mali, Ishmaël Lô from Senegal and others “who carried an extraordinary energy that was pure and authentically African”.
Now, of course, we live in the age of Wakanda and
African influence can be seen everywhere, but Tjeko acknowledges those who have come before him and worked to promote a proudly African aesthetic long before Black Panther arrived.
He cites fashion designers Laduma Ngxokolo and Trevor Stuurman as “some of the fresh new voices that come to mind when it comes to the beautiful African aesthetic”.
Tjeko’s most recent major brand collaboration was a Litema-inspired design he painted on a Mini Cooper car during the Nirox event.
“The aim of the project was to communicate the idea of duality by showing the beautiful fusion of the traditional and the modern. I drew much inspiration from my own personal story as I am living in the contemporary urban environment yet I am still firmly rooted in my traditional culture.”
Tjeko has previously quit three day jobs to devote himself to art, but this time there might be no turning back.
“The response has been good this time around and I attribute that to having found my authentic artistic voice that people can connect with. Although it has been a challenge to get my work into galleries, social media gave me a great platform to showcase my work and appeal to wider audiences globally.”
Tjeko makes full use of social media platforms such as Instagram to promote and showcase his work, something that arises naturally from his background in advertising.
This background, he says, has equipped him with the kind of knowledge he can use to market and position himself as a brand.
“This has given me freedom to define my own narrative and to stay authentic.”
Now that his brand is increasing its reach beyond the borders of SA, Tjeko is enlisting the help of a brand management service. He says the work he has done on his own so far has enabled him to mould his own story as a brand, but working with the management service “will assist in taking things to the next level”.
That next level includes the creation of made-toorder prints available from Tjeko’s website, the setting up of an online store to facilitate purchases of his work, several live art performances at exclusive venues with various brands, and an exhibition that should be ready for March next year.
It’s all in a day’s work for an artist who has taken the image traditions of his childhood and, through a long and circuitous route, made them the basis of his livelihood with the help of new forms of marketing and communication.
Just as he’s straddled the poles of his rural traditional upbringing, his urban influences and exposure to ideas and designs from Africa, Tjeko is successfully straddling the commercial and the traditional art spaces in a way that’s swiftly taking his work to a wider world beyond the narrow audience of the gallery.
Every time I work I get into a nostalgic mode of remembering and imagining how things were back then; the atmosphere in the villages, women painting Litema on their mud houses