Source: www.candicebermangallery.com
Stompie Working
Selibe was born in Soweto in 1974 and has participated in art workshops that includes the Creative Arts Therapeutic and Educational Facilitated workshops; National Paper Prayers Campaign, the AIDS awareness through printmaking project; lithography workshop; the Joubert park public art project, workshop to integrating music and visual art learning; Vuka Uyithathe research and development training; and human rights; and the Imbali Visual literacy project.
In 1998 he participant in international exchange and research project on music and healing, He made field recordings in Namibia, Angola, Cuba, and Belgium.
He has facilitated many art workshops on “healing through art”, and he has participated in local and international art exhibitions from 1997 to date, and has presented at residency and conferences at Boston and Bangkok,
I perceive my work as a means of making music with all what I feel around me, and as an avenue of communicating sounds with my deepest self. This process generates a spontaneity and fearlessness of the thrill and excitement of facing the unknown, of exploration and adventure. I believe that in playing, making art is an unending personal quest to find and liberate ones most hidden inner self. This art making has become such a complete and integral part of my musical being. I am fully aware of the fact that in my work, there are recurring themes of places and situations that I have found fascinating artistically. The excitement of exploring new recycled sounds and innovative approaches is very important. It is also important to me to be able to make prints of these new themes that the viewer can then interpret freely, adding to the “recycling”.
“My art is an act of the soul not the intellect. When we are dealing with sounds and visions we are in the midst of the sacred self. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little, the shadow not the shape. We invoke the great creator when we invoke our own creativity and those creative forces have the power to alter lives, fulfill destinies and answer our dreams in our human lives”.
Music language has now become a very prominent feature in my work. I would describe my work as a deconstruction and reconstruction of musical sounds. In other words my various works inform or cross pollinate each other. I often incorporate legendary musicians e.g. Busi Mhlongo, Dee dee bridgewater, Khadja Nin, Oumou Sangare, Rokia Traore, Malombo Philip Tabane, Sello Kgalane, the late Zim Ngqawana, Johnny Clerk, Miles Davies, John Coltrane, Chris Joris, Keith Jarrett, Bobby Mcferrin, Chris Botti, David Benoit, Malcolm Braff, Stanley Turrentine, Charles Mingus, into my artworks and this is where sound has a prominent cosmos or space in the artworks.
The fusion of the old and the new to recreate unique sounds and the visuals that has the power of healing has enabled me to reach a point of discovering the unknown truth of finding solace and connection in the two mediums utilized to reach my target audience.
Stompie enjoying his work
