Thumbela Group Art Exhibition
The Springs Art Gallery (SAG) is delighted to be hosting and presenting THUMBELA GROUP ART EXHIBITION. This group exhibition showcases combined art and photography work, which resulted from fine arts and photography mentoring and youth development workshop series that took place in Ekurhuleni and Joburg.
The beauty and history of any country is reflected through the arts. It is against this background that world-renowned City of Ekurhuleni artist SAM NHLENGETHWA, founded Thumbela Fine Arts.
One of the objectives is to assist up and coming artists to appreciate their talents and nurture them in that space. Consequently, Thumbela Fine Arts strives to function as a collaborative of engaged students, artists and the community. Art is broad and creativity has no boundaries. Given this, Thumbela Fine Arts elected to focus on a few areas of the art world – namely, fine art training and workshops, visual literacy, research, art entrepreneurship and art exhibitions.
Thumbela Fine Arts’ mission it to expose artists and society to creativity through creative thinking, application and appreciation of the arts and to contribute to a better world artistically. From this motivation, the THUMBELA ART + PRINT + PHOTO PROJECT was born.
It aims to help and offer youth in and around Ekurhuleni and Joburg with basic art, printmaking and photography skills, and to develop ways for them to share their stories by creatively/ artistically documenting and telling their everyday experiences.
These workshops took place from 10 – 15 May 2021 at Rhoo Hlatshwayo Community Art Centre (Daveyton – Ekurhuleni), KwaThema Library (Ekurhuleni), August House Artist Studios (Johannesburg) and the Bag Factory’s Legate Lithography Editions (LL Editions – Johannesburg). A team of professional artists working in various media (Nico Phooko, Galax Ngwenya, Solomon Moremong, Joe Leshoka Legate and Rudolph Tsie) jointly mentored 80 emerging artists consisting of high school students and the unemployed during the one-on-one workshops.
These practical sessions culminated in a professional curated exhibition, THE THUMBELA GROUP ART EXHIBITION, curated by Fulufhelo Mobadi and presented at the Springs Art Gallery.
The exhibition opens on Saturday, 22 May 2021, at the Springs Art Gallery in Springs at 12pm. The opening programme includes unique musical performances by Prince Lengoasa and band.
This exhibition runs until Monday, 31 May 2021 and the art gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9am – 4pm for public viewing (closed on Sundays and public holidays).
This project was made possible with funding support from the National Arts Council of South Africa, through its Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP).
ENQUIRIES:
Baleseng Nhlengethwa
Thumbela Fine Arts
c: 084 599 6264 | e: baleseng.nhlengethwa@gmail.com
www.thumbelafinearts.com
Thabo Sekoaila
Curator: Visual Arts
Springs Art Gallery
Library Building
Corner 5th Street and 6th Avenue | Springs
Private bag x58 | Springs 1560
t: 011 999 8726/7 | c: 073 649 8817 | e: thabo.sekoaila@ekurhuleni.gov.za
