By: Paula.O.M Otukile
Worth Noting:
- ”I like to be as free as possible when it comes to Art forms. I don’t limit myself to just one style of painting. I will use paint mostly because I feel it’s the one that manages to give me the liberty that life denied me. I can fly on the wings of my creativity when I have a brush in my hand and an easel stand and canvas before me.”
- Prince Tom always tries, by all means, to learn different Art forms and find the one that resonates with his love for art. He believes that art is all about expressing oneself and still being able to evoke the viewer’s emotions.
The pallet may know the magical strokes of his brush as the maker, while we know him as Prince Tom. The 24-year-old, son of the soil was born and raised in Botswana and loved being identified as a true son of the soil because of his parental roots.
“My father moved to Botswana when he was still a young man and met my mother and got married and settled here in Botswana, so I was born in Mmadinare, a village not far from Phikwe. I spent most of my childhood in the village and the small town of Phikwe. I developed most of my creative ideas in the village because everyone was free and always willing to create.
My grandmother from my mother’s side was very good at building traditional houses and making lekgapho designs. My mother was also creative. Growing up she used to make beadwork, tie and dye, basketry, weaving, pottery, mosaics, collages, and much other creative stuff. She was a Primary school teacher and Senior Teacher for Practicals so she also used to coach traditional dance, netball, and the debate team, so most of my creative skills I learned from my mother. Sadly, she passed on when I was still young and she never lived to see me fly on the wings of my creativity, ” mentioned Prince when interviewed on his journey of becoming the brush master.
Prince was introduced to the art world at the age of 6 and has never looked back since then. He recalls that he even started receiving most of his art accolades from the primary level. In capturing his love for butterflies in most if not all of his paintings, Prince noted that her mother loved butterflies and as a way of honoring the woman who introduced and supported his love for this craft, he finds it amusing to include colorful butterflies now and then.
“I usually incorporate butterflies in almost all of my paintings. The butterflies resemble my late mother and any other girl child because I grew up in a family of 6 children and I was the only boy, so I am what I am right now because of the love and nurture of a girl child hence why I dedicate the butterflies in my paintings for them.”
Prince Tom does all kinds of art, be it painting on canvas, mural works, body Art, clothes customization, and painting classes.
”I like to be as free as possible when it comes to Art forms. I don’t limit myself to just one style of painting. I will use paint mostly because I feel it’s the one that manages to give me the liberty that life denied me. I can fly on the wings of my creativity when I have a brush in my hand and an easel stand and canvas before me.”
Prince Tom always tries, by all means, to learn different Art forms and find the one that resonates with his love for art. He believes that art is all about expressing oneself and still being able to evoke the viewer’s emotions. He feels that when he has fully expressed himself in a painting, it’s easy for people to fall in love with it because that way it will be carrying so many pieces of his soul, and people connect to one other through their souls, so his painting is sharing pieces of his soul with the world.
“It is the fire in me that enables me to keep me going. I have this fire in me that’s always yearning for more firewood, and the only way to fuel it is if I paint, so when I don’t paint the fire is out and my energy dims and I don’t like it when my energy is low, so I always have to be constantly painting to quench this thirst in my soul. My life is an endless quest of creating and seeking knowledge. There’s so much to learn and do but yet so little time, so the idea that there’s s little time to do everything in one lifetime keeps me going with the hope that if I tarry on and on, maybe I’ll be able to do everything in just this one lifetime, perhaps I’ll be able to finish everything in the coming life for I know for sure that an Artist cannot live one life, even if one argues, I’ll prove it through my Art, for the body dies and rots but the soul lives on forever, and I’ve embedded snd engraved my soul in every canvas I’ve ever touched with my brush and hands so that way my soul may live forever even after my body is long gone,”
An Artist’s life is full of so many visions, and the greatest vision of them all is to create today, tomorrow, and the day after. It is what he creates that will dictate where he ends up in life. Good Art will attract the right and good people, if it goes hand in hand with great advertising and marketing, for it is said that one cannot light up a candle and put it under a bushel. One must shine their light and let the whole world see it. You light up your candle and put it on a platform where everyone can see and eventually everyone will come to sit next to the light. That is how an Artist creates opportunities for himself. This is what the talented artist believes in.
Prince Tom’s artistic profile date back as far as 2016 to date, there had been featured in several community works, art exhibitions, competitions, and more. He recently got 2nd prize for the FNBB Bodiragatsi jwame Lentswe jame competition held in Gaborone Botswana.
“I could only say believe in your dreams and never stop dreaming, for the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”
