Anthony Molebatsi NKOTSI (b. 1955)
Dejavu
year unknown
acrylic on canvas
135 x 114 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Anthony Molebatsi Nkotsi was born in Soweto. During his school years, he would spend any money that his mother gave to him on art materials and spent his Saturdays at informal art classes in Orlando.
There, he was exposed to contemporary South African art and was particularly impressed by a large drawing by Dumile Feni. His involvement in the Soweto student uprisings of 1976 resulted in him being detained.
On his release he attended art classes at the Mofolo Art Centre where he met Dumisani Mabaso and Gordon Gabashane, who had recently graduated from the Rorke’s Drift Art Centre. Inspired by their path, he went on to study there from 1980 to 1982, the year that the Art Centre closed down. The Centre’s curriculum offered a wide range of print media, intaglio processes, such as etching, aquatint, drypoint and mezzotint, as well as woodcuts, screenprints and other forms of colour printing. Debates around political and social issues were encouraged at Rorke’s Drift and the influence of this environment can be seen in his Portrait of a Man (Biko), 1982.
His friendship with Mabaso remained strong over the years and Nkotsi was instrumental in setting up the Skuzo Studio for printmaking at Mabaso’s home in Bertrams, Johannesburg.
He also assisted with establishing the Hammanskraal Art Project and taught printmaking at the Open School in Johannesburg from 1984 and at The Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA).
From 1986, he taught at the Johannesburg Art Foundation, where he was Head of the Printmaking Department. The effect of these institutions can be seen in the quality of his work and in particular in his enjoyment of abstract expressionist forms, seen in The Poets Convention prints. His arts community involvement extended to participating in a number of Thupelo Workshops, including the Ujamaa International Artists’ Workshop in Mozambique.
In 1988, with the aid of a British Council Scholarship, he was able to study lithography at the Peacock Printmakers’ Studio in Aberdeen and the Printmakers Workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland.
His work is in the collections of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, University of Fort Hare, the University of South Africa (UNISA), The Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) and the SABC.