Diseko’s art gallery creates platform for fellow artists
Upcoming group exhibition features Mavengere
It is a fact that there are few opportunities for young artists to display their work, whether in an art museum or gallery.
Art museums and galleries tend to prefer experienced and prominent artists who have more marketability. That is why North West-born artist Boitumelo Diseko established her own gallery called B Artworks Gallery to give others the much-needed platform.
Diseko is 26 years old and probably the youngest gallery owner in SA. The gallery is situated right in the heart of Johannesburg’s creative hub, Maboneng.
Diseko has a strong belief that every artist starts as an unknown and ends up later making it big when given the right opportunity.
“I always loved the idea of owning my own gallery since I was young. I always wanted to be an artist and gallery owner. That idea was there until I finished my degree in art. I am enjoying the idea of having my own space and freedom to do what I want.
“It is a different journey all together but I love it. For it to happen I had to put a timeline and put myself under pressure. What assisted me was that I moved to Maboneng as it is a creative hub and it was easy for me to do research and get the space. The gallery started on social media and in October it finally became a physical structure and was launched with an exhibition.”
Diseko is set to present her second group exhibition called Be Artworks That You Were Created To Be on December 10. The exhibition features Mandlenkosi Mavengere, a multidimensional visual artist whose works speak to the diversity and inequalities of labour, the hardships of migration and the monetary value of goods and services rendered. The exhibition will also feature Thabiso Dakamela, Petros Mweng and Mbali Tshabalala.
When Time Out visited Diseko, she was busy with one of her mural pieces that will be part of the exhibition. Her work stands out because of her unique technique, which she defines as lineation.
Through it, she engages the social environment with activist intent. The technique requires one to focus and be patient. She draws strongly on the theme of psychology, landscape, memory and identity.
Her technique examines the way in which natural environment shape people as individuals. Diseko uses lines similar to contour lines because she looks at memory and identity encoded onto a landscape. These flowing lines and shapes cluster into areas of visual tension and evoke organic forms, natural systems, geographical layers and topography. Her earlier works had a bit of colour, while her latest are dominated by black and white colours.
“When it comes to my work, I treat it as an experimentation with viewers partaking, viewing and decoding them differently depending on the person’s state of mind. Before I started exploring with lineation I was a big fan of cubism (an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement) and I outgrew it. I have been exploring this technique for five years now.”
Diseko uses social media to connect with her art followers and buyers.