Nicholas Hlobo: Drifting Free | Art21 "Extended Play”

(gentle music)

(radio buzzing)

- I like the idea of a radio.

'Cause I grew up in an age of the radio

where I was when I was a child.

(gentle music)

It allows one to imagine

as opposed to giving them
everything or almost everything.

(people chattering)

Sometimes, it's always
good to just take a risk

and just draw a line.

From there, the image builds itself.

So this is like the ignition,
allowing the process to guide.

I find it to be an approach
that sets me on the right foot.

It allows me to drift free.

- Nicholas is an interesting
person, you know?

So he doesn't give you the instruction

like you have to do the work and finish.

He engages with you also while
you're working, you know?

So it's better to work,
work, then do other things,

then come back to work.

Then, when he's around, then he tells you,

hey, you can go this way, you know?

- I tell the people who are
assisting me to do the work

to always just have fun with it.

Don't be too serious about it,

'cause when you try to be
too serious, you won't do it.

It's a waste of your time.

(soft ambient music)

I make these lines, the
lines are easy to make,

but then how you get to force those lines

to assume some new role,

you do it almost child-like.

It brings something to the fold.

You get to learn something from it.

Occasionally I make a sketch,
especially for sculptures,

I make a sketch, so
that's what I have to do.

But most of the time, I
always go into the idea

of working with a word, with a theme,

'cause I believe a word,
especially nouns and even verbs,

they relate to objects
and what objects do.

This is a heel of a shoe last.

For this painting, it's
gonna be named Fak'unyawo,

as in insert your foot,

like testing the water sort of thing,

or stepping up from that.

That's Xhosa.

It's faka, which means insert, plus foot.

So it's faka unyawo,

but should make it one word, Fak'unyawo.

(bright gentle music)

It's important to go astray.

'Cause if you are in a
foreign city and you get lost,

then you'll discover some
alleyways and some avenues

that you will not necessarily discover

had you been placed on the right path.

The silent wind orchestra.

Initially, they musical instruments.

I thought to have them
in one of the canvases.

And that idea grew that, actually,

they could stand by themselves.

They are wind instruments.

If we have these elongated
brass and copper tubes

that are connected to
the trumpets, the bugles,

they will still be music instruments.

And we had to somehow shift

that notion of music instruments.

And also perhaps, would
be used as a metaphor.

If you think about blowing your own horn,

you're too ambitious.

(dreamy music)

Listen to what's happening around you.

You become a little antenna

that is allowing everything to flow.

Some things pass and you grab
the ones that are important.

(singing in foreign language)

Keeping all your doors open,
that's what's important.

(dog barking)

(insects chirring)