Spiritual Explorations with Tcha

By L.DISANE

Image: Artist Archives 

Tcha is a contemporary artist based in Pretoria. He has been drawing since he was young, and he regards this skill as a way of conceptualising his ideas. In primary school, he remembers how he would draw his own anatomy diagrams while everyone else would get print outs from the teacher to stick on to their books using Pritt; this is something he is still proud of to this day. His earliest days in art were filled with travels to museums, craftsmen, churches, caves, etc., and it was through these visits that he was blessed with the experience of seeing and engaging with a variety of artworks. These visits grew his interest in the creative process.

He regards art as an answer to his calling. “It has helped me decipher certain concepts that I couldn’t have without the avenues art provided and provides. I become so engaged in what I am creating that I pretty much mirror whatever I am doing and thus understand it from a inner individualized way, making me access a level of competence that I would’ve otherwise missed,” says Tcha.

 He considers life and the pursuit of purpose on this earthly plane as his biggest influence. He generally does not “follow” other artists for fear of mimicry, but Jean-Michel Basquiat and Baba Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa are his biggest influences. He says that his children and his older “unfinished” works are informing his current creative process.

Image: Artwork by Tcha

Tcha’s artworks are filled with plenty of spiritual symbolism. He attributes this connection to the “spiritual” literature he consumes regularly, and how it ends up in his everyday life, and inevitably in his art as a result. “African art from its lowest understanding is aesthetic but the deeper you study or experience it, the more it reveals a higher level of intellectual, multidimensional meaning, for example, a drum is a musical instrument but also a union of male and female, or even further, a union of plant and animal kingdoms,” he says.

The advice he constantly gives to young creatives looking to turn their hobbies into lifelong careers is that they need to keep creating artworks no matter what. The more one practises their process of making art, the better their final product becomes. He notes that many people are willing to pay artists for what they can do for free, so it is important for them to play their role as an artist, whether they are  emerging or are experienced.

When asked if he would  ever quit making art, Tcha responded by giving an very big NO. He considers himself to be Art, and he will make it until he dies.

Image: Tcha with his artworks