Pretoria - The dusty stretch that leads to Patrick Jabulani Manyike Art Gallery is steep and curly-grained, but scenic with a series of mountains overlooking the house at Mbokota Village near Elim in Limpopo.
The yard of the one-roomed brownish house built with mud and stones, a group of shoeless and semi-clad kids are running around in the yard, toying with the art displays on their reach.
This is a rare sight of an art gallery in the heart of a poor Limpopo village, on the Ribola Art Route.
Manyike plies his everyday business on a tranquil plot of land, and his artworks are placed thoughtfully inside and outside his house.
On the edges of the mountains an elated, barefoot Manyike, who is the owner of the gallery that doubles up as his place of sleep, appears on the hill near his house, teeth displayed as he can’t hide his smile to visitors coming to see and buy his work.
Manyike is a talented and passionate sculptor, who will enthral you with his passion for his trade as he chisels the story out of wood with his own home-made tools and gifted hands.
Carvings of artwork, around 40 pieces, some hanging on a huge tree and dancing in the afternoon wind surrounds Manyika as he tells of how he likes making art that speaks to people, as all his artwork has a story behind them.
“When my artwork dances it makes me happy” explains Manyike.
“I have a story about Ndzundza (mermaid) and a fisherman. It’s a sculpture that I have made and it’s about a man who used to hunt fish and one day he fished out a mermaid and then fell in love with it,” Manyike said.
The Sculptor, whose home gallery is the second stop on the Ribola Art Route, thinks the ancestors are livid with the people of Mbokota and the surrounding areas, because there hasn’t been much rainfall in the area in recent times and if they do get some, it floods the area.
His spiritual perspective was constantly present as he spoke about life in the village and his sculptures.
Like many other artists, Manyike has a piece, Poor Artist of Limpopo, a sculpture of sad faces carved in one piece of wood tells a story of the plight of the Limpopo artist.
“Many artists in Limpopo don’t have enough support from the government. They don’t take care of us. We are suffering but continue to do our best regardless,” he said.
Manyike says he walks 6km over mountains twice a week to get the best wood to continue crafting his art and bring it to life.
“This is something that I was born with. It’s a kind of a calling, even when people from this area are not interested in art. I won’t stop this. I love it and it’s something that I have to sustain … I was sent by the gods t to do the job I’m doing.
“Before the white people came to South Africa we used wood for everything, even as plates for food before we got plastic bowls,” the married father of two girls said.
Pointing to a sculpture of a python about to eat an animal, Manyike said he brings wood to life.
Manyike prefers to work in his humble mud house and has shunned the bright lights of Johannesburg.
He said he would rather stay in his village to make an income from the his hands and mind then to go back to being a slave in Gauteng.
“I used to clean the floors at Carnival City. I would clean for the whole day and then someone would come and make the floors dirty again.”
He said he made a decision to return to his home and claim back his love of art.
He added that he gets support from art lovers who sometimes travel to his village to buy his work and he once had a white supporter, who had heard about the gallery, who travelled from overseas to buy a work that he made about the xenophobic riots in 2008.
“I also have a garden where we have planted vegetables that sustain me and my family,” he added.
Manyike plans to buy a property next to his gallery to build a house near his gallery. He also dreams of a garden of indigenous trees on the properties to place his sculptures in.
Pretoria News