Meet the Artist:

Interview with Mankebe Seakgoe

Mankebe Seakgoe, born in Pietersburg, Limpopo, now resides in Johannesburg. Primarily employing charcoal, her art challenges traditional communication methods. Through distinctive text drawings and sculptures, Seakgoe references Black thought and literature in her work.

Your text drawings go beyond conventional language, allowing emotions to be conveyed without the need for explanation. Can you share your creative process behind these drawings and what emotions you aim to evoke?

I begin with writing what I think and sometimes the words choose themselves. Other times it is pure feeling. I believe there's a language in emotion that can never be expressed through words and so when you can't read the words, I hope you get lost in the feeling.

Art as a tool for understanding is a central theme in your work. How do you envision your art contributing to our understanding of the world and connecting us to experiences beyond our own?

My work helps me understand the world around me and myself in relation to it. It has helped me connect with something that feels bigger than me, to worlds beyond my lived experience. In making I find that my works feel like portals, to these others worlds and I anyone experiencing my work is able to find their way through them to the worlds of them.

You tend to blur the lines between design and fine art. Could you share how you approach this intersection, and what do you believe it adds to your creative expression?

I wouldn't say I blur the lines between design and fine art or at least I don't see it that way. The work I do exists in the realm of Fine Art, however, I find that in the planning and making processes design does come to play. My works are experiential and so its always important for me to consider how they will exist and be interacted with in space. In some sense design guides me dream in actual space.

Can you share a specific instance where pushing boundaries resulted in a powerful artistic breakthrough or realization?

The beginning of my textual drawings was a very frustrating time. I felt there were so many things that I wanted to say but I couldn't find the visual language for, so I began writing and I haven't been able to stop. At first I thought the writing would exist as process toward something else but I've since fallen madly in love with the space that process exists.

What advice do you have for emerging artists looking to convey emotion effectively through their creative work?

You already feel, you just have to do. You have to keep making until you can't.

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All images are property of Mankebe Seakgoe

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