DUMISANI SIBISI WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER FRAMED

Dumisani Sibisi was born in Soweto, Johannesburg in 1962 and is of the Zulu Tribe. He was educated in Soweto at Emaweni Lower Primary (1969 - 1972), Enkanyezini Higher Primary (1973 - 1975) and received his secondary education at Jabulani Technical High (1977 - 1083). He continues to live and work in Soweto . He was taught by sculptor Sydney Kumalo, as well as by Ezrom Legae. Exhibiting since the age of 15, Sibisi has included his work in shows in Australia, Portugal, Canada and the United States.

Dumisani Sibisi is an artist shaped by the hopeful atmosphere following the 1994 democratic elections in South Africa. His collages and three-dimensional images are chiefly of the townships, which Sibisi paints only to record a particular reality of this particular time.

Sibisi does not idealize, showing plainly the poverty and deprivation that millions of black Africans continue to struggle with. He collects the scraps, wastes and offcuts that litter township streets and incorporates them into his paintings, recycling discarded materials and giving them a new function. His streets are starkly empty but for a few monumental figures, burdened by the physical loads they are forced to carry as they walk for miles to their destination, or wait to catch a taxi. Township houses and backdrops are covered with ads for detergent and newspaper articles, while the roofs of shacks – as in reality – protrude with corrugated metal and well-dented motor vehicles. But despite the bleakness of such images there prevails a message of hope. A dove with an olive branch carries a potent message: let there finally be peace in this broken land.