Mkame scavenges hidden beauty
Senzeni Na? Tests, Trials, ConquerPosted by sangweni on 2026-04-02 00:20:28 | Last Updated by sangweni on 2026-04-18 16:11:22
IT was the worst and best of times for black visual artists living around Durban townships in revolt against apartheid when the Nationalist Party regime declared a State of Emergency in 1986 to silence voices of freedom and hide images exposing the system as a crime against humanity.
Clermont township, west of the city, was one of the political hotbeds that bred struggle artists; politically conscious musicians and poets alike in the late 1980’s.This volatile and vibrant era in South Africa was profound to, amongst others, Sifiso Mkame from this township, who was produced as an enduring social commentator in him.Through his colourful pastels and fabric design, which defined his formative years in 1982, surviving the worst and best of times under the state of emergency dark curtain, as a rebel with a cause, he continues telling stories that cannot be overlooked.Mkame is probably, if not possibly, what Mzwakhe Mbuli had in mind in one of his popular struggle poem lines about a spectrum of being ‘born in vinegar times and fed with lemons and graduating from the university of wisdom’. Mkame’s daily inhalation of teargas and confrontation with the police in his backyard on 10th Street in the Top Rank section of the township triggered his talent to tell stories on pertinent social, spiritual and political issues. He managed to see through a maze of social ills amidst the fog of teargas fumes and canisters of apartheid police threw compulsively like lollipops to cheering children. This inhuman hobby by the police to hurl teargas at Clermont residents throughout the bustling township brought Mkame face to face with tense moments bordering on tempting fate to go missing. When Mkame and his peers formed the Clermont Art Society out of the Clermont Youth League, as an extension to dent apartheid, his journey to partake in the daily struggles of his community to make a difference started in earnest. The explosive political climate stirred Mkame’s consciousness such that, through one of his fabric arts, he sent her niece to detention without trial for her 16th birthday under the continuous state of emergency in 1987. The niece’s crime? Wearing one of Mkame’s June 16 T-shirts, which a day later again landed one of his bosom friends in police custody for wearing the same garb. ‘My art at the time was focusing on what was happening in the community, the harassment of the community by police and soldiers. It dealt with social issues. I was like a social commentator on what was going on in my community. I printed June 16 T-shirts. That T-shirt got my niece Smiley detained for months. She got detained because of my work. I felt bad, but at the time, everybody wanted the truth. She was arrested on a Sunday after a political rally to commemorate June 16, and on a Monday, my friend Musa Ndwandwe was also arrested for wearing the same T-shirt and was kept in custody overnight and released unharmed. I felt it should have been me who should have been arrested. Smiley was very young. I felt very bad that I was responsible for her arrest. Why didn’t they come to me? Fortunately, my family did not blame me for Smiley’s arrest; my mother was involved in community struggles and knew that in the struggle, there were always casualties. My mother used to get death threats. That is why Smiley was brave, as she and other township children were politicised at a young age. Smiley’s arrest inspired me to do ‘Letters for my Child.’ Mkame’s profound moment about his signature artwork is out of character, questioned by fellow artist Thami Jali, who he holds in high esteem for making him believe that being an artist is viable. Jali queries Mkame how he could have conceived such letters because he had no children and knew nothing about children, which can be best described as poetic cynicism. Mkame snaps at Jali, explaining himself animatedly that when he said that, he was not referring to his own child. The exchange transpires at an evening dinner to establish where and how they met and who helped whom, if at all. Truth is always told in jest, isn’t it? Mkame recollects himself ignoring Jali’s below-the-belt jab, amplifying how the artwork that caused trouble for those dear to him inspired him to conjure up - Letters to God, also an optical wonder that still stands the test of time. ‘In Letter for My Child, I was asking why we were living a life like this. How can I raise a child in a place like this? Every day we woke up to police spraying people with teargas. When I went home to my mother’s house, I found that everyone had run away. I once found my sister’s child left alone, crying, almost suffocated from teargas fumes. I took the child outside. I stopped the police in a passing van, demanding an answer. What must we do when they shoot even children? Sometimes, children would be teargassed coming out of the Lutheran Church, and students from Ziphathele High School also suffered the same thing. So, I was asking questions about how a child can grow up in such a depressive environment. It was not about Sifiso’s child. It was about an African child.” Mkame pauses, switching to explaining how his mother made him and his siblings politically aware at a young age, ending up designing and distributing political posters. Despite the bunfight, Mkame’s political baptism is the glue that binds him with Jali, though the latter palpably seems like his sibling rivalry, 35 years later after meeting each other at Judge Vuka Tshabalala’s disused owned shops in the hood. ‘I saw Thami drawing at the local Tshabalala-owned shops. I told him I like what he is doing because I was also already doing art at Bangani Open School in 1982. Thami was older than me. I respected him as an older brother. I was part of the Clermont Youth League (CYL), out of which the Clermont Art Society (CAS) emerged to try to save youth from getting shot by police after political rallies. It was difficult to convince excited youth to be interested in getting skills in the midst of political upheaval. We suggested that those who want to learn something must remain behind, but they all preferred joining the toy-toying masses. We decided to form an organisation for skills development and discussed what kind of skills can be taught. When Thami got involved in the youth league, we were already friends. I told him that we need people like him who can help empower youth with skills, as he was from the University of Zululand and Rourke’s Drift. I recruited him into the Clermont Youth League and started working together. My rented one-room at Top Rank on 10th street was the headquarters. As a general secretary, I proposed that Thami be included in the executive because we needed his art skills. Sometimes the room will be too small when local activists Hlengiwe Mgabadeli, S’bu Mngadi and Bheka Shezi come for meetings, and we would hold the meetings in my opposite neighbour’s room, Terror Mathebula (not the boxer). The youth league came about in the same way that we were forming for the second time. It had been started by my elder brother, Moeletsi. We were exposed early to Black Consciousness Movement, which advocated self-reliance. We were worried that youth were only politicised but lacked vital life skills to survive and were vulnerable to the police when toyi-toying in the streets. We felt that instead of being shot with rubber bullets, we would rather teach each other skills. We discussed what to do and decided to start poetry, music, stage plays and art workshops. Artistic gods soon smiled on the willing Mkame when lecturers John Room and Janie Jordaan, aided and abetted him to defy apartheid's separate education, attending secret Saturday classes at the then whites’ only Technikon Natal. ‘Room and Jordaan used to sneak us through the back door at Technikon Natal in Smith Street because black students were not allowed to study there in 1982. They taught us print-making. It made us feel great because we were learning a new skill. At Bangani Open School, I used a spoon to do a woodcut. They did not have a printing press. While I was at Bangani, Room and Jordaan used to come. They were friends with Joe Ndlovu, who was in charge at the school. They invited a few of us to come on Saturday to the Technikon. We would sneak in, and the security guards did not bother us because we came with white people who were ducktail bike riders, too. Mkame talent caught the attention of another discerning Technikon lecturer, Barry Maritz, who instantly liked his work and gave him wood blocks. “I was used to working with pastel. He felt it would be something if done on woodblocks. No darkies were doing that. He gave us a free reign to do as we wished and only periodically checked us and commented here and there.” His meteoric rise saw him, just like Joseph Manana, around 86/87 being recruited to teach at the Community Arts Workshop. When they formed CAW, I was attending Diakonia. It was under the Race Relations where Jo Thorpe was struggling with funding. It was agreed that we move to CAW, and we were happy that we were going to mix with white people. We worked with Sandile, and Thami would come. They ended up closing the Diakonia venue. Sandile Zulu was in Rourke’s Drift with Thami. I ended up at CAW, being given a position as a student teacher. From a self-taught artist, Mkame found himself teaching silk screen printing on cloth and on paper, which counts as one of his career highlights to grow and mature. “If you are an artist, I always look at it as a two-way thing. You learn from the people you teach. I also used to teach art to children at Sunday school. Before church service ended, I would go to teach art without pay at the Wesleyan Church in Clermont. Sometimes the kids made things that excited me.” His enterprising approach to art secured him plenty of commissioned work in one instance by a white couple he met in Pinetown to make T-shirts of Pantsula dancers, stokvels and church uniforms. The couple was captivated by what he could do on the spot. In 1987, when I did Letters for My Child, I brought my work and asked the couple to do a critique of it. They told me the work is good, and there is nothing they can criticise. I wanted them to talk about it, to point out where I lack. I was not convinced. I was not satisfied; I took my work to the Johannesburg Art Foundation. I had been to Wits University as part of the Zasha Cultural group. The KZN delegation included writer and novelist Mafika Gwala and Omar Basha. We went with Jali and Musa Ndwandwe, the friend nabbed by police for adorning my June 16 T-shirt. Before the end of the conference, Mafika said I must remain behind. He had spoken to Bill Ansley that I should exhibit at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. I wanted to grow as an artist. I spoke to Bill. There was going to be a critique of students’ art. My work was displayed. I was happy that, based on feedback, I would learn something. If your work is analysed, you get a sense of whether your use of colour and technique is on course and where you should improve. The lecturers were due to judge students from Johannesburg selection to submit at the University of Zululand (Ongoye) annual art exhibition.” The exposure paid handsomely as four of his works were displayed, with two selected for the Ongoye exhibition, while one was bought by the famous late Durandt Sihlali, who also invited him to the Fuba Art Centre in Soweto. The other artwork was bought by a Wits University lecturer. This opened the floodgates for the hard-to-crack Mkame, as it turned out, for Bongi Dhlomo, who helped him frame his work for the exhibition. Mkame remembers one thing vividly. “We fought about price. She felt it was expensive. I insisted that was the price I wanted. Take it or leave it. Mkame was vindicated when they later heard that Letters for My Child won the first prize at the Ongoye exhibition and was sold for a whopping R500. The exhibition then continued to the Durban Art Gallery. “My work was broken in transit. I took it to reframe it. I decided not to take it back. However, when I went there, I was chaffed though it had a sticker ‘sold’. Terry Ann advised me to charge the university. They paid me, but I kept the work. When I sold it to the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg, its value had increased to R750. Soon after that, through Terry-Ann, Paul Mikula and Simon Vines gave us access to exhibit at Phansi museum as the Zasha Cultural group. Musa used to play music with Jethro, and afterwards we drank traditional beer with Mikula. I subsequently went to Tupelo Art Centre in Mofolo in Soweto, where Thami was teaching. Mkame’s burning desire to advance took him to the Goodman Gallery, where, when he was due to be paid, the apartheid mechanisations rudely caught up with him. The gallery could not pay him because he did not have a bank account. After all, artists were not treated as workers, and he used to give his mother’s bank account. I ended up opening my own personal bank account around 1993 when E-bank was introduced for blue-collar workers because employers used to be mugged when carrying cash. The E-bank accounts were introduced before I went to Canada. Tikkie Phungula was due to go to Canada but had a family bereavement. I did not want to go. His wife came and told me to forget politics and go on the trip. Mkame elucidates that he did not want to go because of his then misguided radical notion that a freedom fighter cannot collaborate with oppressors, worse still, overseas-based ones. “I grew up knowing that White people are oppressors. I did not want to be influenced by Whites abroad. We were obsessed. I wanted nothing to do with America because I did not want to be a sell-out. I did not even have an Identity document to apply for a passport. We went as a group from Natal. We left with social workers, Non-Governmental Organisations and traditional healers. The event was about the projection of Aids in South Africa, showing negative images of black people burying people. The stigma was that it affected black people only. It was organised by the ANC in 1991. Dr Manto Tshabalala came to brief us. She told us what to expect when you are on a plane. We were going to meet and interact with Aids NGO’s. The ANC felt people should be educated that Aids is not a death sentence. As artists, we gathered information about how Aids is projected using a visual medium. The traditional healers met native Americans; there are lots of them in Canada. As visual artists, we listened and projected. We did posters. I had a traditional healer and a medical doctor showing how to use a razor and how healers and doctors can work together. When I came back, my poster was made a cover for the ANC Youth League Magazine.” After that, Mkame wrote Letters to God in 1988, which he describes as a double of two conjoined pieces, after it was chosen for the triennial art exhibition in Cape Town. I was helped by Terry Ann. She framed it and transported it. It did not win. But people were impressed. The National Art Gallery bought it. I was happy that the people and artists voted my work as a winner, though it was not chosen to win in the competition. Mike Hibby saw my work and told me I should have won. He was a lecturer in Grahamstown. Despite the downside, Mkame maintains that he grew as an artist because of the exposure to show that his technique was unique and that his pastels were different, and this gave birth to two letters. Mkame is proud today that out of his raw talent, he has something to show. He is finishing his own house, which he has built from scratch, out of his own pocket, without throwing himself into the jaws of debt. Good things do indeed come to those who wait, staying focused, doing what they do best, telling stories through art with a strong message to change and improve the human condition. The strikingly coffee-brown looking bearded Mkame was born in 1963 in Marianhill hospital. His mother’s ancestors are from Zanzibar and part of the John Dunn, coloured ‘nation’ in Mangethe. His parents stayed in Ndundulu in Clermont, and he is the third of their four children, two boys and two girls. “My father is S’Khumbuzo Qhuma from eXesi, in Alice, who was a lawyer. He came to Durban and met my mother. We were tenants. We did not stay with my father, he was studying for an LLB degree while my mother, Elizabeth Mkame, was a typist at Motseme Mail order business before joining the famous Nyembezi firm of attorneys close to Raj Cinema. My father came occasionally. He studied law at the University of Natal and left to teach in Rhodesia, and got involved in Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF. We were brought up by my mother on her own. When I grew up, there were no divisions on family chores; we used to bake, clean the house and cook without regard to whether you were a boy or a girl. My father did not contribute anything. Each time he was around, we would beg for money, and he would give us money when already in his car and would sometimes just throw it at us before taking off. My grandmother is a daughter of the John Dunn family, and her husband was from Zanzibar, who was a seafarer. My mother is the last in the family out of six children. From Umngeni, we moved to the top Rank in Clermont township. Then I went to stay in Mangethe, where I started making clay houses and handmade things before school-going age. In December, when relatives were visiting, I was supposed to start school in Mangethe. I cried, I wanted to go with the relatives returning to the city. I took only one pair of trousers. That is how I came to start school in Clermont around the 70s in Jerusalem Primary in Ndunduma, though I was still underage before enrolling for my first grade at a Roman Catholic school. After that, I went to Chesterville High School in 1977.” After his stint in Bangani Open School, Mkame could not go to Rourke’s Drift because the iconic school was closed in 1982. I liked drawing and making clay cows. I used to draw maps, charts and schoolmates paid me for drawing pictures for them. My brother was able to draw my portraits. I realised then I liked art. During the craft period, we would pick tomatoes, wooden boxes, burn, and engrave them without teacher guidance. So, in that space, I was good, and I fell in love with it. The Bangani Open School later relocated to Diakonia premises, where I worked with Sandile Zulu and Thami Jali. I used to attend Saturday classes. I would check books. I once met a white man on my way to Diakonia. I was impressed with his work depicting buildings. He advised me to go to the library and discover for myself, cautioning that he does not want me to mimic him. I could not understand. I felt he did not want to share knowledge with me. I got angry. But eventually I found that if you want to discover yourself, you must do things for yourself.” I am mostly self-taught. I like to read a lot. The same message still carries on, but I am using masks. As one grows and learns that Africa was once one, I am an African. I can’t differentiate myself from the rest. I am using African masks, which were used by Africans for ceremonies. They had masks for the great harvest and those for when a woman couldn’t bear a child. They will use masks when carrying a child. I am reminded of warrior women from Gambia. My art is no longer focusing on SA. I have broadened my horizon. It is not going back; it is about learning from my past to go forward. I still do figurative work and still combine it with social issues. My work deals with women abuse, child pregnancy, virginity testing and also about love. Musa once wrote in response to Albie Sachs’ call that South African artists must abandon struggle art by asking him whether he has seen my Love Letters. I dealt with things that affected society like love, death, joy and pain. People bought my works before I finished them.” Why is letter writing the overriding metaphor in Mkame’s artworks? “When we were oppressed, I thought, who should we address our grievances to. Who do you write to? I thought about a child who would be born into this situation. It was a letter for an unborn child. In the Letters to God, I was addressing and questioning God, how can he allow us to be oppressed? How does the church help us talk about?”
