I painted this oil painting called "Ulwazi" upon my recent return to Australia from South Africa, a few weeks ago. ""Ulwazi" means "wisdom" in Zulu. (This is also one of the reasons why I have not posted on Steemit since my first post but will do regularly now.)
I painted this work to remind me of the rich, soulful & colorful spirit of the "Motherland" and of the spirit of the Great Creator that is seen gleaming from behind the eyes of the SA children. I spent time with friends there, many of them are amazing artists living in Johannesburg that I went to Uni & school with in Durban. I also spent time with my family in Cape Town & JHB. I truly believe the Cape is one of the most staggeringly beautiful places on earth.
Amongst all this beauty & richness of spirit there is a dark shadow hanging over ALL of its people. Its like an echoing silence before the hurricane hits. I did a watercolor painting on the porch of my uncles beautiful, 100 year old farm house. My uncle is a great musician. He has many guitars amongst his guns. He does not like guns. They are not fun.
As most people know the SA government have just started taking the white owned farms without compensation & are discussing how they can change the laws & the constitution to make it legal to kill whites.
I will just leave you with a few points about this situation but encourage you to do your OWN research:
There are 44 thousand white owned farms in South Africa which feed most of the country. One farmer feeds 2000 people in SA. The farmers also employ hundreds of thousands of people. The SA government have made no checks & balances about how they plan to use or distribute the land after confiscation. When this exact thing happened next door in Zimbabwe the Zim government kept most of the confiscated land for themselves to line their own pockets ... now there is mass starvation & hyper inflation in Zim. When the SA government confiscate farms the farmers will no longer pay their bank loans which will immediately collapse the SA economy. The Buntu black African ppl (who now run the government) were not in SA before the white Boers. They migrated down from the Congo. The native people of SA are the Koi San or the Bushmen who are peaceful nomadic tribes who are not represented in the government.
The black South African government inherited a country which had an amazing infrastructure and one of the worlds richest countries in mineral wealth; Gold, diamonds, coal, platinum, palladium, chromium just to mention a few. They had every opportunity to create a great nation since 1994 but now that the infrastructure is falling apart & people of all races are suffering who can they turn around to blame ? The whites.
I grew up in SA during apartheid. It was wrong & will always be wrong. However persecution of another minority group just based on the colour of their skin is also wrong especially when these people are not posing a threat but work with blood, sweat & tears from sunrise to sunset to feed the nation.
In my experience it is also not the average SA black person calling for this division & destabilization.
Welcome back !!! I was wondering and waiting for your posts, and I am glad you have returned :D Very thoughtful text and certainly one that is fraught with a lot of complexities... And the drawing is magnificent in its vibrancy, colours and composition <3
Love the child's expression, with such energy upon the eyes ! <3
Beautiful work, am super stoked that you are back, and wishing to see a lot more from you in the near future :>
Thank you so much, veryspider. I am still getting the hang of this site & how it works. I have & am making art animations so getting onto Dtube tomorrow. Im gonna have a look at your page now. Yippee !
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Thats awesome. Thank you. Good quality content to come.
Whoa what an explosion of colours and patterns in this marvelous artwork. I like how you manage to put a rainbow of colours onto this painting without making it like a jumbled mess.
I am sorry to hear about what's going on in South Africa :(.
-upvoted-
Thank you, Scrawly. Yeah, SAfrica IS a land of colours & beautiful patterns. :)
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STOPHello stunning painting that brings lots of different emotions.It is so well done.
Thank you, drawmeaship. There is so much soul, culture and amazement in SA that I tried to reflect, I often want to move back then I remember how people also struggle there. Its so unnecessary.
Really beautiful picture and with such vibrant colours - I especially like the way you've captured African child's expression. Well done and thanks for sharing.
Thank you egodust. I am not religious at all but I do believe in God ... & I think children are naturally connected to that spirit... tried to capture it.
@egodust SOOO true
What a beautiful painting around such a serious subject. Thank you for putting in the effort and the emotions and putting it out in the open!
Thank you @almariene Yeah, its very strange. People who live in safer countries dont know what its like. One of the saddest things is how the lame stream media across the globe twist & lie about the situation over there.
This really is an awesome artwork, I love the splendid colors ... but over all I love the reason why you painted this! It's hurting very much to see this happening, to see people suffer in all possible ways. And yet ... still have a beautiful culture and character. I hope for better soon. Real soon!
thank you @hetty-rowan Interesting turn of events with Trump putting a spotlight on the situation. Yeah, there is such beauty in South Africa in the land and in ALL its soulful people. Its the people at the top ruining it for everyone.
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This is a prize for your great painting, I selected it as the best artwork I've seen published this week, congratulations.
Wow ! @palasatenea THANK YOU !
Your painting is amazing, the colours, the eyes!
Thank you @bitcoinfused !