As part of its external engagement with the Africa Art Centre (AAC), the DUT Department of Fine Art and Jewellery Design launched the Velobala Mentorship Programme, a six-month training course for artists earlier this year.

To mark the end of the mentorship programme which began in April this year, the Department of Fine Art and Jewellery Design exhibited the works of the four mentees at the DUT Art Gallery, Steve Biko Campus, from 11 to 19 October 2012.

The work which went on exhibition featured class assessments of the mentees from the beginning of the programme as well as their conceptual projects.

The mentorship programme came as a result of DUT’s longstanding relationship with the AAC which is a Durban-based organisation that plays a pivotal role in promoting and training black artists and craftspeople in South Africa.

For six years now, the DUT City Campus has been the base for one of the organisation’s many projects; the free Saturday classes which are aimed at teaching aspirant artists. The three-year course is a concrete foundation that develops the artists’ craft whilst honing them for art courses in higher education institutions and preparing them for the industry.

Seeing the vast talent of some of the artists, the Fine Art and Jewellery Design Department, in partnership with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Arts and Culture and the AAC started the Velobala Mentorship Programme, an initiative geared towards catalysing the careers of advanced students of the AAC. DUT Lecturer in the Fine Art and Jewellery Design Department Themba Shibase was appointed to facilitate the mentorship programme.

The assessments given to the mentees were all centred around life. “The idea behind the many hours of drawing from life was to emphasise the view that artists should be people with a high degree of observing their environments whether social, political, economic, environmental or personal. And, that artists are no longer just those people who live in the solitude of their studios and paint their uncontested ideas of the world,” said Shibase.

Wonder Mbambo, one of the mentees said art is practically his life. Before enrolling with the AAC, Mbambo had various stints which included a short course for artists, teaching drawing and even operating his own art studio, all at the Bat Centre, Victoria Embankment.

“This mentorship programme has been very helpful”, Mbambo attested. He said it has helped him understand the theoretical side of art and has seen him grow as a conceptual artist. He also realised that art is not just about one’s skill but how one nurtures that skill and brings a message to his or her work.

His conceptual work featured a collection of artworks that were painted around the theme of stick fighting. The theme was inspired by the transformation of the male species. His work then looks at the changes in the way men are brought up. “In the Zulu culture, things like cow herding and stick fighting mould one to be a man or to have that personage. The practice of stick fighting teaches one to understand body language. It brings communities together. It is also a game of pride; it’s about who becomes victorious,” said Mbambo.

The artist said young men in this age have substituted stick fighting for sex, which Mbambo said has become a game just like stick fighting. His work illustrates old customs of African men and how these affected their lives. Other artworks are illustrations of sex as well as disease and homosexuality.

– Naledi Hlefane

Caption: Wonder Mbambo, a Velobala Mentorship Programme mentee stands proud next to one of his artworks exhibited at the DUT Art Gallery in October 2012.