10 Sep 2014

Mr Olebogeng Mafatlha, who practices graphic designing, weirdly designed a calendar interpreting the bible in the form of art from the first book of genesis to the last.

The calendar, dubbed Chronology of the bible, depicts the story of the Bible in pictures from the beginning to the end; how people came to be and how the world would come to an end.

Some people posit that creativeness is to some extent something people are naturally born with and that highly creative people have a unique thinking ability and keep going to extremes when interpreting and interrogating things that happen around them.

Yet while most artists always apply their distinctive imagination to come up with conventional pieces of art work, Mr Mafatlha’s abovementioned creativity is something out of this world.

As one wonders if the dreadlocked artist was himself when the idea came to his mind, he said in an interview that he had merely incorporated two of the subjects he liked most at school; art and history.

The first step into this unique piece of art was for Mr Mafatlha to read the bible from page one to the last, just to understand and interpret it as it is.

It is well known that the bible is associated with those who go to church, but it is a different story with the artist because he doesn’t go to church, but he read the religious books just like anybody who could read a novel.

He said he started his project in 2005 only to finish it this year and so far he has sold about 600 calendars.

“People always get astonished by this piece of art and always ask me what I was thinking when I came up with this unique idea. I do a lot of explanations to people before selling them my product,” Mr Mafatlha said.

To market himself further, the Palapye based artist intends to bring on board the Department of Theology at the University of Botswana and shoot a DVD with them.

He has been in the art industry for many years now, and in 2008, he had an opportunity to exhibit his art work at Thapong Visual Arts Center and at the National Museum.

“By then I could do drawing and other stuff, but these days I only focus on one thing, the calendar, he said.” ENDS