Thabang Lehobye is a visual artist and illustrator and the head of design at FCB Africa.in Johannesburg experimenting with various techniques using acrylics and charcoal. Thabang won the Thami Mnyele Art Award competition in 2021 and is now an artist who is rapidly gaining attention on the local and international art circuit. 

 

He completed a three-year printmaking program in 2004 at the Artist Proof Studio (APS), a community-based printmaking centre in Newtown. Lehobye thereafter graduated with a Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Johannesburg and studied Creative Brand Communication at Vega, sponsored by William Kentridge. The same year he was awarded a Loerie Gold Craft for his short animated film Inside the box. He received a scholarship funded by Johnson and Johnson to attend The Bauen Youth Leader Camp in Wyoming USA - a youth camp that looks at how the arts can positively address social issues. Lehobye’s works explore Johannesburg inner city as a subject. He also experiments with various stop-motion animation techniques using acrylic and charcoal. Thabang has been part of various collaborative exhibitions including a Professional Development Program at Artspace Gallery with Prof. Kim Berman and After Hours (Norway)

Thabang Lehobye's Mgusha was selected for the Constitutional Court of South Africa's art collection. 

 

'Vanishing Points' is part of an ongoing series exploring Joburg's  inner city habitants,  and the city itself as subject.
The idea of a physical space being passed over different generations of migrants, almost like the Hillbrow Tower
being past as a baton, this itself speaks of the diversity which makes Joburg such a unique place. A constant architectural cityscape frozen in time and its ever-changing migrant population.

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Thabang explains " I attempt to capture the brightness of day by using contrasting hues to emphasize the sunny-ness of day one would find on a typical Joburg summer day. The low angle perspective approach is meant to almost lure the viewer in, to walk the streets. This is further emphasized by scale going even bigger, double in size from “Seeing the light”

This series intends to challenge the viewer to step in further.

The composition is open, a portal into the city itself. Joburg has a sense of magnetism, it lures you in. People vanish, get lost and find themselves. Sometimes they don’t. The work invites you in, you step in.

You become part of the subject. 

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Many of these artworks have now sold from Artvark Gallery, were they were on show. 

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'Portals of Migration' was Lehobye’s recent solo exhibition which ran until the end of 2022 in Rosebank. It is what one may call a love letter to the city of Johannesburg that invites you to “step into” the artworks as you explore the familiar scenes before you.

“The city represents possibility and hope. Many migrate into the city to find themselves; a lot lose themselves. The story of the miner did not end when mines were decommissioned and abandoned; many are still digging for gold one way or the other,” 

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Link to Artist's Full CV here.

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