ArtAngels Africa is an auction initiative brought to London and curated by Rhino Africa for the first time. ArtAngels Africa is the canvas on which education and empowerment are painted, where leading South African artists donate their masterpieces to auction, alongside iconic travel itineraries to Africa, for the benefit of learners in rural South Africa.
Lionel Smit is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on themes of identity and origins, with emphasis on the Cape Malay community in South Africa. Lionel is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures.
Words from Lionel Smit about the inspiration behind his art and his experience with Art Angels
I never remember deciding to become an artist. It was something there that was just part of my life.
I used to carry a sketchbook with me and sketch people around me. My love for drawing and painting slowly started growing but I work a lot with portraits, figures and the people that I seek were basically in my surroundings. I started using the Cape Malay girl when I moved down to Cape Town.
The style itself lends itself to these large canvasses or large sculptures, the idea of being immersed within this abstraction when you are up close just works when it’s big. I’m looking for that emotional impact when you walk up to the piece.
The inspiration behind the sculpture Forge is quite a connection to various things that I do, my sculpture became quite influenced by my painting where I use a lot of drips and a lot of swaths of paint. I try to mimic that idea into a three-dimensional form so something that is liquid but also in a very solid state at the same time. The sculpture is a fragment of a figure, so I always try and have an ongoing theme of fragmentation almost like the fragmentation of identities within it.
I don’t think I can really pinpoint why I create art; I think it’s something that most artists struggle to explain why but I think its definitely a therapeutic process for me. For that second in that creation, you forget about everything else and you can focus on something that is more than just materialistic.
Working with art angels for a couple of years now really showed that it actually uplifts the artist as well and the fact that you can change and affect the community through education just through art is a really humbling process.
