Young emerging local artists have filled in the 2011 cartoon blanks and expanded the broader appeal of Port Elizabeth’s Route 67 – a R40 million creative arts project including 67 pieces of artwork installations from the Campanile, up Jetty Street across Vuyisile Mini Square, through St Mary’s Terrace to the Donkin Reserve. Alongside each featured artwork are newspaper headlines showing what happened in South Africa and the world during each of the years tata Nelson Mandela was in public life and with a quote from the international icon.
In October 2011 Bretten-Anne Moolman and Lourens Westraadt started their ArtComix Project journey to ‘flesh out’ two cartoon characters who would star in a publication chronicling their journeys along Route 67. (See: Help Bretten-Anne and Louwrens Fill in the Blanks)
A series of workshops were held with young emerging artists of the Nelson Mandela Metro in 2011. Guest speakers were invited to talk about their art and their professions within the public domain. They were Alexandra Noble, Stephanie van Vuuren and Jacques Nel.
Through the workshops a primary illustrator team was identified, Andile Poswa, Bamanye Ngxale, Christo Booth and Monde Goniwe as well as a back up team, Banele Njadayi, Christopher Musvaruki Mkhonto Gwazela and Siyabonga Ngaki. These young men, with a fine art and graphic tertiary background, all contributed to the success of the ArtComix Project.
The ArtComix Project exhibition is both a documentary of the process of developing the ArtComix in the form of photographs, video and drawing as well as a showcase of the artists who were involved with the ArtComix process, with their own artworks.
ArtComix is an educational and marketing tool to raise awareness, promote public art and particularly Route 67 in Central, Port Elizabeth.
The intention is for the publication to be widely available to ages 12 years & up and involves comic characters engaging with MBDA’s Route 67 as well as related institutes and public art locally, nationally and internationally.
The ArtComix Project is funded by the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) and is implemented by the Mandela Bay Development Agency, working on behalf of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality
It consists mainly of two young illustrated characters, Khanya and Themba that visit and engage with the various public art sites in Port Elizabeth which are photographically portrayed.
The ArtComix Project is a registered exhibition on the Fringe Visual Art of the National Arts Festival that takes place from 26 June to 13 July 2012 at the Athenaeum in Belmont Terrace, Port Elizabeth
Bretten-Anne Moolman and Louwrens Westraad foresee this to be an exciting exhibition showing the development of the characters and the storyline.
Bretten-Anne and Lourens say; “The added attraction is the individual artworks done by the artists, guest speakers and facilitators, who were involved with the project which will in turn give the viewing public a sense of the variables in career directions in visual art.”
“The exhibition venue: the Athenaeum, which has a broad base appeal for all disciplines in the arts in the metro, its proximity and significance to Route 67 will, we believe, instill a sense of ‘pride of place’ to viewers of the exhibition and the comix publication” concluded the pair.
Alan Straton
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