THESE TWO NUL STUDENTS, DRAW LIKE NO OTHER!

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art from nul
art from nul

From house plans to book covers, fabric painting to drawing, ancient to modern art, black and white to coloured, what these two gentlemen do with their imagination, pencil and paper is beyond breath-taking!

Mr. Lereko Sabastian Tsekiso and Mr. Mandela Joseph Moetsuoa are majors of Sociology and Development Studies in the faculty of Social Sciences at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). They do art “out of passion, from their hearts’’ as they put it.

The two first met at National Manpower Development Secretariat offices, NMDS in 2013. They later met at NUL. They coincidentally shared a room, Mswati room 1, and that is where they began to nurture their magic—ART.

What these two gentlemen’s fingers and minds along with pencil can put on paper is one of the pictures you would want to see every day. The one you would walk around carrying, simply because it is beautiful!

While Mr. Moetsuoa started drawing in primary school, Mr. Tsekiso started drawing as early as pre-school. The latter drew extraordinarily good pictures. He took a wider view of art when he got to high school. That’s where he started designing house plans which, he concedes, he always feels humbled when he looks at them.

The duo says it takes them at least three hours to draw a simple picture. At most two days depending on the quality of the picture, its complexity and their work load as students.

It doesn’t matter if it’s charcoal or graphite pencil, fabric paint or coloured pencil. These two gentlemen do almost every form of art. From house plans to fabric painting, book cover art to drawing pictures , ancient to modern , black and white to coloured.

Apart from producing any form of art, the two gentlemen have so far designed a cover page for a book by Women and Law Southern Africa on human trafficking. They have also designed house plans. They have shown their exquisite creativity on t-shirts, which they call fabric painting.

When asked what art meant to them, they explained that they both could not imagine their lives without art. Mr. Moetsuoa showed that it was through art that he connected to the world and reality. He stated that art gave him peace of mind.

Mr. Tsekiso, says not only does art help him connect to people of every class in society and to relax his mind, but it also takes him to his own world where he can express his imagination, feelings and emotions in pictures.

“It makes me feel good about myself, because every time I produce a good looking piece, I feel very proud— and I just can’t live without art.”

Despite the challenges they face, they can’t stop dreaming big about art. Mr Tsekiso aspires to be one of the best artists in Lesotho. His vision is to create an art network for all artists to work together for the development of the art industry. He further wants to spend the rest of his life doing art and engaging in projects that would help artists to make a living out of their talent.

Mr Moetsuoa wants to see himself engaged and dedicated in art more than he is now. He wants to expand the art market in Lesotho and compete in international art competitions. He believes he will have acquired more skills to produce variety of art in the future.

They said apart from their families and friends, so far they are receiving support from individuals who love and appreciate their art.

They tell anyone with the same vision and talent to follow their dreams and never give up. In their view, art is expensive, but one should never give up no matter how scarce the resources may be.

“One should never take support from those who degrade art because what one produces can support him.”

Mr. Tsekiso‘s advice to anyone who would love to venture into the ART tunnel is that the artists should be the first people to love their work because art, as he puts it, “is all about well organised mistakes. Make art and let people judge it, but when they are doing that, make even more art. Practice makes a better ARTIST.”

And, he had a secret or two for aspiring arts,”good artists don’t copy. But they steal.”

 

This blog post was originally written by NUL Research and Innovations

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