One of the founders of the fledging Thapong Arts Centre, Veryan Edwards has been at the centre of the Botswana art scene for three decades.
To step into the home of Veryan Edwards is a journey into a surreal world of art. Each painting on the wall is a story ÔÇô an experience frozen in time ÔÇô as seen through her eye. Her work is described in a commentary she wrote for an exhibition she held in August/September 2003. Life, she stated, is ephemeral so we have to engage in the moment.
In another piece of writing, he has underscored the centrality of metaphysics in her work as she seeks to capture life not only as it is led in Botswana, but in general. She paints in abstract form, with the occasional appearance of figurative images.
“I continually explore how best to express different levels or veils of existence or reality in me and others,” she has previously explained. “I believe that the viewer should interact with the work, bringing to the experience their own perspective and interpretation, which leads to find their own meaning, or not, in a work….. In this way, the works are open-ended and there is no attempt to try to make people see things in any particular way. At the same time, it is wonderful if the original feeling and concept of work succeeds in being conveyed and shares something with the viewer.”
Born of British parents (she remains a British citizen), Edwards was partly raised in South Africa, and trained at Rhodes University where she earned an Masters degree in Fine Art. It was a tense moment in the evolution of South Africa’s political story, with the country moving tumultuously towards the explosion of the students’ uprising of June 16, 1976. Apartheid had closed most opportunities for black children ÔÇô including formal art education. One of the few places that opened an avenue for black students to follow creative arts was Dorkay House, in Johannesburg. A former clothing factory, Dorkay House would become the crucible of South African music and performing arts. Edwards was recruited by the African Musical Drama Association to teach art to black students at Dorkay House. She was there for three years, but eventually despaired of the political situation. Soweto had imploded, and the repression of the apartheid machinery was maniac. Edwards downplays her struggle credentials, saying she “got a little bit involved”.
“At the time we couldn’t see any real change happening, but of course, we were wrong,” she says today. “It was a heartbreaking situation. It felt odd to be teaching people how to draw when there was so much suffering. Of course, it later took the protest artists in Soweto to raise awareness about the plight of apartheid situation. But at the time one didn’t feel art could change anything.”
When her accountant husband was offered a job in Botswana at the Rural Industries Innovation Centre (RIIC) in Kanye, it provided the much needed route out of South Africa. The couple lived in Kanye for five years, an experience Edwards calls a privilege because it introduced her to life in an African village. That experience has etched another dimension to her art. She has previously talked of the landscape of Africa that her work reflects, the Africa that is reflected in space and colours. She uses rich colours to express a sense of sun and heat of Africa.
In many respects, the Botswana of 1980 that the Edwards came to was worlds apart from today’s. The art scene was concentrated around the National Museum and Art Gallery, which had the only real exhibition space in the country. She recalls her first exhibition ÔÇô “I think it was in ’83” ÔÇô at the National Museum, and what struck her most was that the gathering at the opening night was primarily foreigners.
What passed for the local art crowd were mainly expatriates and the refugee community, mostly South African. The South African refugees brought a kind of vibe to the Gaborone arts ÔÇô be it visual art, theatre, literature or music. Most had fled to Botswana from 1977, and they established a cultural organisation known as Medu Arts Ensemble, which ran units specializing in music, theatre, graphics and visual arts, photography and writing. The visual arts unit included people like Thami Mnyele, Judy Seidman, Gordon Metz, and Libero Nyelele.
As she looks back to that era, Edwards suggests that the South African refugees were bound to take the lead because they were coming from a vibrant art scene. But their work opened new possibilities because locals saw the potential of art through people like that.
“I am happy that today there are many Batswana who appreciate that I do this kind of art,” she says.
This is where she credits a change in attitude in the school system. Up until the early 1990s, art was not part of the secondary school curriculum. Edwards points out that teaching art has had the effect of creating an audience so that now more people understand what they are looking at when they see picture. In a sense, the teaching of art has given it value.
Rather than be the preserve of the elite, she sees art as being for everyone because it reflects culture back to the people, and culture is not anybody’s monopoly.
“By culture,” she explains, “I mean it very broadly; like the feeling and ethos of the time so that even someone like myself can reflect something…. even though I am not a Motswana.”
Edwards sees art as transcending all barriers ÔÇô cultural, political, gender, and racial barriers. In her world, art strips us all bare and becomes our lowest common denominator so that when we meet, it is as person to person, not woman and man, or black and white, or even young and old. As she puts, regardless of people’s different backgrounds, there is always a meeting point, always a bridge, and that bridge is art ÔÇô because art is universal. In a previous writing, she has explained that her interpretation is that we live in a spiritual universe comprised of energy in varying forms and it is this energy that goes beyond self and which she shares with the viewer.
Even as she celebrates the inroads that art is making into the school system, there remains equal skepticism, especially from parents, about its usefulness and if it can really put three square meals on the table.
“That’s a problem that’s never going to go away, especially in Botswana,” Edwards concedes. “There is so much we don’t have. We have no art agents, no commercial art gallery. There are only a few places that artists can exhibit at outside Thapong (Visual Arts Centre) and the National Museum. Other countries have galleries that are completely dedicated to art with a stable of artists. They promote their artists, and help them sell, and get them to the public. There are agents who bridge the gap between artists and galleries. Other countries have a buying market. Here, a young artist sells well at first. Then it stops because people who have money would have bought enough from the same person. Contrast that with London with a population of eight million people, and out of that you have the 10 percent who buy art and have the money. Here we have a limited market; I wouldn’t say we have none.”
This is one area where she feels President Ian Khama has really come to the party with his directive that government buildings should be decorated with artworks from Batswana artists because that has opened a new market. Of course, there is a limit to the number of paintings a wall can take. This is where the role of private sector institutions comes in because they are a potential market for local art. You just have to look at the number of office blocks that are being built everywhere. Bank of Botswana, for instance, was once a keen collector of local art.
Edwards’s experience with collections in private institutions is that if the CEO is interested in art then the collection thrives and grows. The moment a new leader comes in for whom art is not of interest, the institution suddenly ceases being a friend of the arts.
What she finds “very sad” is when large companies engage interior designers from outside who then choose to overlook Botswana art, and bring paintings from South Africa.
With all its good intentions, could the presidential directive bring unintended results ÔÇô such as compromising quality as artists race against time to produce for government buyers, some of whom don’t have a discerning eye?
“In a way it rests on the professionalism of the artist, but one hopes it works well. [You cannot rule out that] people can end up producing superficial work. These problems could be overcome if we had more artists, or if people put out adverts and asked artists to submit their works. In that case the best rises to the top. ….provided people who buy have a good eye,” Edwards says.
She draws a parallel with what happened during the Italian Renaissance. The royalty and popes who patronized the arts and put in a lot of money had an eye for good art.
