Sedireng Mothibatsela (b. 1977, Botswana) explores layers of identity and personal emotional journeys, employing minimalism and abstraction to evoke the psychology of sentimentality and memory. Drawing from her personal experience with education, Mothibatsela is keenly aware of the influence one’s pathologies have on their visual language, finding particular interest in the culture of suppressed emotion and vulnerability. Deeply personal, her work deals with issues of identity and placement and a need to learn more about herself within the context of personal histories and psychological attachments.
Mothibatsela investigates people, events, spaces and objects that trigger a deep sense of sentimentality. Dividing her expressions into the tangible and intangible, she employs abstraction and realism to render emotional and intuitive responses to familiar associations with clarity and precision.
Realism forms most of Mothibatsela’s visual language, acting as a vehicle through which she commemorates her physical world. Her studies of objects of personal significance through still life are central to her practice, while also utilizing abstraction to evoke complex emotions.
In Woven Sanctuaries, her works elaborate on themes of grief, commemoration, and identity as she reflects on her observations of and relationships to her maternal and paternal grandmothers and their passings. As such, these works serve as a tribute and conduit of knowledge of her own lineage.
In 09.12.98 Is Heaven Where Makhulu Is, lace is used to communicate the complex relationship between life and death. It acts as a veil between this reality and the unknown; between the uncertainty of the certainty of death. Beneath the material sits a blurry image, evoking questions and assumptions about what we are seeing. In Beauty Lesson 1- Never Clean your Face with Water and Beauty Lesson 2- Remove the Shine, Mothibatsela utilizes linen as her canvas, framing it with satin ribbon to evoke the idea of gifting and sentimentality. In these works she remembers her first lessons in skincare and beauty and reflects on the restrained contradictions of her grandmother, whose home was laden with formal Euro-centric furniture, as well as South African blankets.
Mothibatsela has a degree in Fine Art from the Maryland Institute of Art. Her work is included in the Nelson Mandela Foundation Collection, the Njabulo and Mpho Ndebele Collection, and the Bame Pule Collection. She has exhibited at the Botswana National Museum, Gaborone, Botswana; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dakar, Senegal; Museu Nacional de Arte, Maputo; Mozambique. Solo exhibitions include FNB Art Joburg, Johannesburg, South Africa and INVESTEC Capetown Art Fair, Capetown, South Africa.
Mothibatsela lives and works in Gaborone, Botswana.