29th September 2020

Interview with Stompie Selibe

How did you arrive at the current style that you are becoming well known for?

Music played an essential part in the inspiration and creation of a piece of art, it begins by me listening to music and using the process of musical theatre improvisation was that is free-spirited and without boundaries that allows the possibility to both play and express myself.

Who has been your biggest influence?

Influence of mentors. Stompie Manana and Dennis Nene have been mentors to me, they have shown me a way to look at myself and taught me a way to form myself as a young person. They really taught me the role of values in my work and in life, they taught as well as embodied, ethics in practice, the ethics of what one does. Both of them were concerned with the development of young people, they were friends as well as spiritual guides, they taught and showed me the value of harmony, of peaceful change, of doing good, they showed how important it is to be guided in life by values and ethics and to seek out and build communities of people who share in these values.

Has COVID 19 and lockdown impacted you and your artworks?

My work is a representation of what the lockdown has been for me, it has sheltered me as well as meant that in my deepest thoughts and feelings I have felt deep wells of missing, of loss. The isolation has meant living more with my own, and our own, shadows as well as with our own imaginations and our ideas of new possibilities. COVID 19 has highlighted for me how we need to find new ways of living life together, of leaving our deepest shadows and fears behind us. All of us need to learn to change what we know, to make new possibilities, new creations of our shared world and our own worlds within that. The work represents a new beauty within, to see the opportunity to have a life as making art, making new meaning about ourselves and our lives together and exploring how to work, live and create together as a people.