Tatham Art Gallery

The Celebration Panel is the result of an artist-in-residence programme held over two weeks in October 2008 in the Main Gallery. In response to the Africa! Ignite tapestry exhibition, four local artists created a fabric panel in this exhibition space. Beauty Sekete, who is well-known in sewing circles, teamed up with Tholakele Ngcongo as well as artists Siyabonga Sikosana and Bonginkosi Ngcobo. Gallery staff acted as facilitators.

The panel, which tells the story of Beauty and her community work in the Greater Edendale area, will be on display in the passage next to the Tatham Shop until the end of January 2009.

Celebration Panel

This panel was created by a group of four artists working in the Main Gallery during the second half of October 2008. Their brief was to create a panel about their own experiences in response to the Celebrating Change tapestries, facilitated by Africa!Ignite, that were on exhibition at that time.

The co-creators of this panel were:

• Beauty Sekete, a seamstress and well-known community worker in the Greater Edendale area,
• Tholakele Ngcongo, a local Seamstress,
• Siyabonga Sikosana, an artist from Willowfountain, who now lives and works at Basani Craft Centre;
• Bonginkosi Ngcobo, a local artist.

Facilitators in this project included Gallery staff and members of the Midlands Art and Craft Society.

The information in the panel came from many hours of research and ideas which were put together by the artists. The main thread is provided by Beauty's personal history and experiences, which the group found inspiring.

On a trip to Elandskop (Emunyweni), where Beauty has been involved in several community projects, including the establishment of several sewing groups and a creche, the visitors from the Gallery were jubilantly welcomed by Mrs Nzimande and others in traditional dress. This experience inspired the lowest section of the panel. On the right Beauty can be seen bringing a sewing machine and other gifts to the community.

The middle strip depicts the signatures of the artists written in "Chickenman" Code.

The centre section is made up of eight paintings by the two men using fabric paint. Four of these are landscape scenes from Edendale and the other four show Beauty at different stages of her life: nurse; seamstress; jazz singer and school girl carrying washing for her mother.

The top panel symbolizes Beauty's ideals. She is reaching for the stars and some of these have turned into the emblems associated with her sponsors and efforts:
The American and South African flags; the Tatham Art Gallery; the University of KwaZulu-Natal; the SABC; Shoprite-Checkers Woman of the Year 2001 etc.

The figure sitting in the (family) tree wearing an academic cap is Beauty, who is enchanted with the moon and the stars. The iconic section below the tree depicts a significant part of her personal history: the birth of her mother, Dukile, who was the result of a union between a white man and a black woman.

Here, again, the artists used an image from the Gallery: the image of Beauty's grandfather grew from Tim Quirke's exhibition of "historical" South African paintings that were on display in the Schreiner Gallery at that time.

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