Setlagole-based Thebeetsile Gontse, (21), also known as Prince in the North West province, has his artwork of the late AKA to thank because it has won him creative prominence on social media.
Prince challenged Lebani Sirenje, also known as Rasta The Artist, who has become one of South Africa's most popular celebrity portraitists in recent years, over AKA's artwork without anticipating that he would trend as much as he did. Rasta The Artist is a painter who was born in Zimbabwe. He is most well-known in South Africa for honouring deceased celebrities with a personal painting.
“What led me to make the AKA drawing is that I saw Rasta's painting of AKA and I was like, how can this trend but not looking that good. Then I did it and posted it,” said Gontse.
Since social media can help a business to attract customers, increase your market reach, including national and international markets. Prince is one of the people who can attest to that because he has received nationwide exposure since he did AKA's portrait. Prince claimed that his Facebook post only took him a day to become a significant trendsetter and that news pages even shared and posted his post. Since his AKA's portrait post, numerous orders for portraits have been placed by individuals countrywide.
His work is slowly gaining national exposure as more people share his paintings. Some of his earlier work has proved quite successful and earned him a good reputation at the Ratlou municipality areas. “When I got to grade 11, other schools were calling me to go draw them emblems of the school on the walls outside. I started painting on the walls and still I was doing wonders (freehand). Then when I got to Matric. Early childhood developments (crèche) started calling me to decorate their buildings, drawing cartoons, logos, etc, outside walls,” said Gontse.
The artist was raised in a small village where most of his peers ended up smoking and drinking because they had nothing better to do. However, the artist promised himself that he would never be like them and continued to pursue his talent and dream of becoming a fine artist. Thebeetsile was aware of his desire to only use his hands to create art.
“I have never wanted to be like the other Setlagole boys who are constantly smoking and drinking. Because I was distinctive, some people told me I would never succeed and that I wasn't unique. “You won't get anywhere with these drawings,” These are the remarks that genuinely gave me confidence. Every time I attempted to stop, I got the impression that we would all end up the same in Setlagole and that if I stopped, nobody from this community would become a young star,” said Gontse.
Not only does Prince draw inspiration from others, he has inspired many young stars and now own a company called GTG Arts and Project (PTY) LTD. The artist specialises in pencil drawings (portraits), painting on canvases, boards and walls, street art (graffiti) and cartoons, artistic haircuts, tattoos and fashion customising (shoes and clothes).
