Interview: Hari Lualhati
2019-12-09
Base Seven
2021-04-08
Getting to Know Polelo Huma
1. Tell DFO a little bit more about yourself
What I do professionally in my spare time is creating more art works or working on customizing clothes from sneakers, caps, t-shirts and jeans.
I love what I do, and I believe in return it will love me too. I have been dabbling in art for the past 6 years and I consider myself as a young and versatile visual fine art artist who is hungry to have a breakthrough in the visual art world.
Something that people don’t know about me is that mostly I spend a whole lot of my time alone and try to figure out how will I get to my breakthrough.
I sleep five hours a day, and sometimes I don’t sleep at all. I am an over thinker. An author and a dancer as well if I am not creating art. I believe that art is like poetry but we speak in motion pictures and unmovable objects to tell our significant stories of our lives, past present and future. Art for me is another way of speaking and spreading my voice or my emotions to the world.
Art gives freedom to express myself and that is one of the biggest decisions that led me to doing art or drawing. As the saying goes, “experience is the best teacher”, we all have to accumulate some certain knowledge in our lives throughout the experiences that we come across and it helps me to grow mentally and spiritually.
2. From an art perspective: What are your biggest weaknesses?
I might have not realized that I have a certain weakness but the one I currently have is having plenty of unfinished body of works that all need to be completed. Because I do art for myself and I also do commissioned work for clients. So I am working on having a time frame that will be scheduled for me to actually make time for commissioned clients and the work that I do to voice myself out there.
3. Be bold – tell us: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
Well I see myself as one of the best South African visual artist and I want to see my art skill surpass where I am now. And I want to see myself as an Art icon, being into the Art syllabus in universities in South Africa and international I want my name to be written into the books and history of art. But most importantly, I want to be amongst the best name mentioned
4. Out of thousands of artists in SA, why should people appreciate your art?
Well in that at some point It is my duty to make sure that people appreciate my art. My art speaks for the voiceless. My art connects to those who appreciate it and at some point it does speak to them, it gives them hope, at some point it brings them peace that at least there is an artist that speaks for us that can feel and automatically feel our emotions.
And again it’s the style and techniques that I use that attract and let people appreciate my art. There are only four Artists that use the Fumage art also known as smoke art that I know in South Africa that includes me. The technique is hazardous to work with, so it is a challenging medium to work with and it blows peoples minds. But art is not about perfection it’s about perception.
People admire my art because it relates to their everyday social life. It reflects to their daily basis.
5. "What do you like about being in the creative industry? / What do you enjoy about using your creative talent?"
Creativity is the best creation. Being creative is one of the most common thing that artist should have. They might be thousands of us visual artist doing hyperrealism work but one has to have his own and unique style that will let people know without even me signing my work to say this is Master P art works.
So being creative is a must. And one has to enjoy being creative for it to open doors to various aspects of art. So having a different technique is what makes an artist different from others. That will require a serious creativity. In other way having a different creative mind that will develop into others as a lifestyle it will be one of my long term goal that I will have accomplish and shared to the upcoming generation of artists.
6. What do you consider to be your biggest creative achievement??
The moment I was one of the top 20 BicArtMster competitors, an annual art competition hosted by the Bic pen company. Now the other moment came when I started using fumage art that scooped me an interview with Daily Sun Newspaper.
And now I just won the DFO art competition using my first creative art of Steve Harvey with Pen hence it is my first art work I produced using pen. And it has placed me to the number one spot of the competition.
7. Tell us about the last time a client, family or friend questioned your art or creativity. Elaborate on what happened.
There was a time when I used myself as a reference to an art I titled ‘Listen to Yourself’, and I posted the art work on all my social media platform and I was criticized that those people do not even look close to me.
And I said the bottom line wasn’t the art work here, but the message within. While I know deep inside that their critique was very true and accurate. And I have learnt from that as well. And that didn’t have to demotivate me from doing art. Sometimes critiques are to strengthen you, not to destroy you.
8. When working on art "describe your definition of done."
Well I think I might have a different approach on the “work is done” type of thing, because of the different techniques we use as different artists. You might find out that the half work you see from him; it might be a done work to that particular artist. To me when I say a work is done is when I see the exact replica to my reference and my art lookalike.
9. When creating, what kind of work environment do you like best?
I love working in my own space with a certain type of music in my background. The music that goes with the mood of me and creates my art. So normally I work from my mom’s kitchen that where most of my art works are being cooked (Laughs) as I don’t have a studio of my own. So I would say my mom’s kitchen does it all for me.
10. Define your creative/drawing style?
To be honest I love challenge and fumage art (smoke art) is one of my favorite art styles as I mentioned that they are only four smoke art artist that I know in South Africa. Namely Azael Langa, Deane Victor, Anathi “elpee” Nkanyuza and myself. Smoke art is doing an art work from a smoke of fire, either from a candle or a paraffin lamp.
Below they are art works made of smoke art:
11. What can we expect from you in the near future?
Well I won’t mention much. But expect huge collaborations with huge names. And some few television interviews and that’s where you will see what I have in store for you in future
12. What advice would you give young aspiring artists?
Nothing is new that I will say, always stay true to yourself, stay in your lane and stay focused. The only competitor you have is the person you see when you look into the mirror. Don’t compete to be better than the others but compete to better the person you were yesterday, today.
Run your own pace and in your own lane. Determination, hard work and sweat are the ingredients to become the successful visual artist you want to be. Sometimes you don’t need to be motivated; you just need to be the motivation.
