Emerging Creative: Mark Modimola

Mark Modimola's work is explorative, it involves elements of design, art, history and culture. He is interested in ways of storytelling using visual mediums such as digital art, painting, design in order to capture moments of daily African culture. This has led him to explore themes of self, identity, time and culture. Colour, patterns, skin and hair are elements that excite him when describing the black identity, politics, and a link to nature which occurs physically and metaphysically.

Modimola believes that as an artist ones duty is to reflect and create, through such acts one can enhance the culture and voice of a time. The tradition of art in Africa has always sought to capture life as it occurs and express the energy manifesting through the space the artist occupies in that time.

Modimola's journey began as a graphic designer at Joe Public. He worked on branding and design for nearly 3 years before being drawn to other creative routes. He then lectured at the University of Pretoria for a period while freelancing as a designer and illustrator. He travelled to the USA for a few months exploring and learning while pursuing a Fulbright scholarship. He returned to SA with the initiative to create, and since then he has been working as an artist, doing workshops, classes, talks and building his craft.

Modimola is currently working on a set of playing cards centred on African history and royalty. He considers it as one of his more successful projects as it is a global project, independent, and allows him to contribute to black culture constructively. It will include a booklet with research on African royalty depicted on the cards. The patterns are hand-drawn and capture elements from across Africa.