Sheep after inspiration by Gamnqoa Kukama

The latest assignment was tied in with the theme of the art of Africa. I chose for specialisation the country Botswana, not the least because of their twenty thousand or more year of art history. The largest of these sites in Botswana is Tsodilo, but, I finally chose for inspiration for my painting the art of Gamnqoa Kukama. He has said a wonderful thing:
“Art is a spiritual thing. You long for it when you are without it. It is pulling you to do it. You cannot leave it.”

And also, his art has something in it that draws my eye. It may be his background, which you ought to read up on. It is really quite interesting.


This, then, was painted in acrylics, after the same inspiration as mr Kukama uses - from my childhood, the animals I knew, the plants I saw. I tried to draw upon his style of art when painting it, disregarding perspective in favour of feeling, using the idea of grass tufts rather than the photographic view of them and so on. I tried to keep a somewhat limited colour palette, with Process Cyan, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, Process Black and a tiny wee bit of Permanen Green Middle.