BIOGRAPHY
PAUL SEKETE
(b. 1957, Free State, South Africa)
Paul Sekete was born in 1957 in the Orange Free State. After his schooling, he worked as a miner for a year prior to joining the Katlehong Art Centre.
He was a self trained artist, and works both as a sculptor and as a painter. Sekete participated in numerous group exhibitions in South Africa, Namibia and abroad. His first solo exhibition was held at Gallery 21 in Johannesburg in 1990.
His media includes clay, wood, linocut, woodcut, oil and acrylic, while some of his sculptures have been cast in bronze.
Sekete used distortion, elongation, and disproportionate scale to describe the human form and combines these with well defined linear shapes. Sekete's imagery often conjures up a sense of the neon township - forms remembered from a street corner, somewhere. His light brushstrokes evoke the monumental out of the ordinary; the “extraordinariness” of the ordinary. “A hat at a jaunty angle, a bright sacred necklace, oh, and there's a man running and that lady, she's waving … greeting!”
In 1999 Paul Sekete left the townships of Johannesburg for Cape Town, and divided his time between there and his home town in the Free State. Not surprisingly the “neon township” made way for a more earthy, rustic palette and Sekete evolved his language, a secret script that describes his world and invites us to journey with him to places and possibilities that are both real and imagined; familiar yet mysterious.
Paul Sekete died after a long struggle with illness in July 2010.
In 1999 Paul Sekete left the townships of Johannesburg for Cape Town, and divided his time between there and his home town in the Free State. Not surprisingly the “neon township” made way for a more earthy, rustic palette and Sekete evolved his language, a secret script that describes his world and invites us to journey with him to places and possibilities that are both real and imagined; familiar yet mysterious.
Paul Sekete died after a long struggle with illness in July 2010.
EXHIBITIONS
1990
1990
Two person exhibition at Gallery 21, Johannesburg "The return from exile"
Solo exhibition, Gallery 21, Johannesburg
1991
1991
Group exhibition, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, "Town and Country"
1995
1995
Three-man Exhibition with Peter Sibeko, and the late Winston Saoli (This was Saoli’s last exhibition while he was still alive)
2001
2001
One Man Exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town
2004
2004
10 Exhibition - 10 years of democracy, Everard Read Cape Town
Celebrating the African Spirit, Katonah, New York
2006
Celebrating the African Spirit, Katonah, New York
2006
One man exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town
2009
2009
Manifesto – solo exhibition, Everard Read Cape Town.
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