issue 001 : Ripfumelo Sithole

My name is Ripfumelo Sithole I’m a Multidisciplinary artist based in Johannesburg,Born and raised in Soweto, Moved out of Soweto at the age of 6 to the west Rand.

I studied visual arts in high school in fact I went to a art school to further my skills

Most of my work is inspired by what’s always happening around me and I speak a lot about textures on my work
I would maybe stitch something with wool on my canvas that for me would be a example saying there’s people who can’t see but they can feel the texture of whatever they can touch and there’s people who maybe can’t use their hands but they can see the textures

2021 was one of the greatest moments of my life I went to Cape Town to a artist residency at the fourth gallery and also was part of a group exhibition my works sold out same day

People tend to think it might be going easy for me as an artist there are challenges I had before the whole residency, Sometimes I would submit my works to galleries and I wouldn’t get any responses back but I realized I just had to set a clean portfolio and present my works in a very good way which I think most up coming artist are not aware of that and I personally think if galleries had workshops on how to present your works it would make things easier for artist to have knowledge on setting up their works to highest level.

In the next few years I would love to see myself owning a farm and giving back to the community and providing art classes to the community maybe have a residency.