ARTIST COLLABORATIONS
Each year we collaborate with South African artists to create a series of illustrations for Carbon Films. These works represent the artists’ vision of the people at Carbon and the work they produce.
THABANG LEHOBYE
Thabang Lehobye is a visual artist experimenting with various stop motion animations techniques using acrylics and charcoal.
He started his formal practice at The Artists Proof Studio, where his love for Joburg as a subject started. Thabang has been part of various collaborative exhibitions including a Professional Development Program at Artspace Gallery with Prof. Kim Berman and After Hours (Norway).
Passionate about the medium of charcoal, printmaking and animation, his recent mixed media works further explore Joburg inner city as his subject.
Instagram: instagram.com/thabang.lehobye/
ELIO
Elio Moavero is an illustrator and designer, living and working in Johannesburg. After graduating from the Open window with a Degree in Visual Communication, he worked in the advertising industry before going freelance. He has designed album covers for the likes of PHfat, Shadow Club and (Deadly Bites, The Ceramics, Black Pistol)
His style draws on an amalgamation of Ed, Edd ‘n Eddy cartoons and 60s and 70s gig posters.
Instagram: instagram.com/elio_illustration/
JESSICA BOSWORTH SMITH
Jessica Bosworth Smith is an artist who consistently challenges the conventions and techniques of visual storytelling. Her works explore themes of memory, the esoteric and the uncanny by a process of thorough research and application of concepts associated with psychology and parapsychology. Bosworth Smith believes in a fluid and multifaceted form of storytelling and, as such, is consistently exploring traditional mediums in experimental ways. She works primarily in ink, watercolour and pencil with final works often culminating in printed and hand-bound artist books.
“For the Carbon project, I was inspired by the fact that all life is carbon-based. We are all made of the same elemental materials and living and dying is merely a transmogrification of this element through time itself. My "beings" for this painting are almost suspended in amber at the moment that they have become alive; they recognise that they are individual yet they instinctively reach tentatively across the void to share a connection that has been made over and over, in many other forms, throughout the eons.”
Instagram: instagram.com/jess.bosworthsmith/
ZHI ZULU
Zhi Zulu is a Gold Craft Loerie award-winning illustrator from Johannesburg. She enjoys storytelling through illustration. Zulu completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Visual Communication at the Open Window Institute and has worked as a graphic designer and illustrator. She has part-taken in multiple exhibitions at galleries including The David Krut Gallery, No End contemporary Artspace and the ABSA experience gallery. She is also part of the class of 2019 Design Indaba Emerging Creatives.
Zulu is currently the sole owner of an illustration studio called Zuluvisual.
“Every illustration that I create has a story behind it. This piece, I call 'Carbon woman', portrays what I imagine to be the human embodiment of the Carbon element. The concept is based on carbon in Africa, all its aspects of bonding as well as the importance it has to all plant and human life.”
Instagram: instagram.com/zhi_zulu/
KEYA TAMA
Keya Tama is a south African Artist based in Los Angeles.
He paints murals, canvas, animates and illustrates. His work focuses on the interpersonal relationship between families animals and individuals. Using saturated paste coolest and minimalist symbolism to simplify and navigate the emotional landscape making it uniquely accessible. Currently he has had two solo shows in LA, one of which was at Cartoon Network studios, where he also painted a three story indoor mural.
“I loved the videos that Carbon has produced and felt the need to show the sense of community and simplicity that brought your films together in my mind, I wanted to do something that made sense as individual pieces and as a whole: spontaneous yet ordered.”
Instagram: instagram.com/keyatama
ELLENA LOURENS
Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Ellena Lourens began working on personal and collaborative creative projects while in high school. Since then she has further pursued illustration, street art, embroidery and film. She has immersed herself in the creative world, assisting established artists New York , Los Angeles and Cape Town, as well as furthering her own praise, taking part in shows and creating murals in both South Africa and the United States.
“When working on the design for Carbon, I was trying to make something fresh and aggressive (determined) at the same time as being calm and considered. These are the feelings I got from what I've seen/know of Carbon.”
Instagram: instagram.com/ellenalourens
We produce collateral pieces such as tote bags from this work.
All bags printed and manufactured locally by Sparrow Society.
A registered NPO creating ethically made products with a purpose to empower & encourage.