08 Feb 2015

Visual artists have been encouraged not to personalise professional criticism as this would make their craft unenjoyable.

Giving a presentation on photography and exhibitions at Thapong Visual Arts Centre, Vice Chairperson of Botswana Society for The Arts Ulf Nermark said artists should learn to just accept criticism and move on.

“Once you take it personal, the criticism becomes painful, less fun and you fail to enjoy your craft and end up quitting,” he said.

He indicated that photographers should have a special field from the onset and the challenge in Botswana regarding most artists is that they are not known.

“There is a lot of talent out there but corporates are failing to sponsor them because they are not known,” he said.

Speaking on photographers, he said the best pictures do not need any post production.

“The best photographs come from the lens and do not need to be altered in any way after,” said Nermark.

He further said such presentations will benefit artists in the long run.

For her part, Head of Visual Arts at the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture Monica Selelo said participants in last year’s Thapong Artist of The Year Award (TAYA) competition should take advantage of such initiatives to measure themselves and see where they are in terms of their work.

She said such presentations after competitions are very important so that those that did not win can see where they went wrong.

“A lot of artists after last year’s competition felt that they should have won and I always asked them why, to which they failed to talk about their artworks,” she said.

She said it is very disturbing that most artists seem to not know what to say about their work.

“One should be able to explain their artwork and not just submit art pieces for the sake of just making the numbers,” she said, adding that as artists the first question one should ask themselves before displaying their work is “would I buy it myself and add it to my collection and have it in my house for a very long time”.

Selelo further said she is disturbed by the increase of manipulation of pictures using computers and that does not show the quality of artists.

“What is important is that one has to show the quality of their work and the presentation also has to be spot on,” she said.

Reginald Bakwena, coordinator of Thapong Visual Arts Centre said the presentation done by Nermark was good for artists to observe and help each other out.

During last year’s awards ceremony 12 photographers, 38 painters and 20 drawers participated.

“Artists should also suggest solutions to us on how best we can assist them going forward,” he said.

The presentation was for photographers who participated in last year’s TAYA and also for aspiring photographers.  ENDS