One day when Thami visited the gallery we sat down and I questioned Thami on the influences of his work. He started to talk of his childhood, a playful twinkle came into his eye, as he talked about the freedom of going down to the river to collect clay to make animals. He described a rural area where there were no toys so children needed to fall back on their ingenuity to make animals out of clay and discarded bones.
He explained that children made puppets out of found treasures of bones, clay and wood. They used their imagination to bring the puppets to life and stories grew as they played. As he has grown older Thami has managed to keep that childlike play alive and it sparkles in his eyes when he talks about his work. Kitty grew up in Machibini near Lady Frere and he spent his days looking after cattle and making things inbetween. At age 10 he moved to Khayelitsha and attended Andile Primary School in New Crossroads. He recalls the teachers encouraged him when they saw his creative talent. “I felt very powerful and good inside drawing” the artist discovered.
In 1988 he left school and joined CAP in Woodstock. He was in the teenage drawing class taught by Lucy Alexander. In 1990 he exhibited his wooden sculptures with Mario Sickel and Ricky Dyaloyi. In this exhibition he uses found wood and let the formal aspects of the wood dictate the subject.
Thami now works where he can find space. His work deals predominantly with animals. In some works animals merge into humans and so inhabit a mythological space. His works shows a close observation of the subject with his precise and detailed chisel work.
Nathalie Bucher in her article in The Cape Time March 21, 2012 observes there is a soulfulness and a silence which always seems to emerge as he dialogues with the wood. Other carvers produce results quicker than Thami, but speed usually eliminates the spirit that is always present in Thami’s work, whether it is a stand-alone sculpture or a puppet.
Kitty Dorje
2017
Dream now, dream not, annual Winter Solstice Exhibition, The Cape Gallery
2014
Pause; the annual wildlife exhibition at The Cape Gallery
2012
Siyakubona, group exhibition at The Cape Gallery
Turn Around Time, annual Winter Solstice exhibition at The Cape Gallery
2011
Annual wild life exhibition at The Cape Gallery
Continuum, Annual Winter Solstice Exhibition at The Cape Gallery
2005
Participated in the group exhibition “Encompass” at the Cape
Gallery
2003
Thami Kitti, is mentioned, together with Kevin Willemse, as an assistant
puppet-maker for the production of Tall Horse. Anglo Gold Ashanti funded
his work over an extended period in Handspring’s Kalk Bay Studios.
1998
Worked with Lovell Friedman at Community Arts in Woodstock helping with
the display of exhibitions.
1997
Participated in a painting and sculptural project under Jane Alexander;
“Shadows of Robben Island”
1996
Attended an international workshop in Botswana.
1990
Thami attended the Community Arts Project working in Sculpture (Wood)
and painting.
Attended the Luhlaza High School where he completed Standard 7 in 1989.
excerpts FROM THE TALL HORSE THEATRE PROGRAMME:
“Tall Horse is a product of collaboration of artists
from diverse cultures – Malian, South African, Béninoise/French,
American and English. It is a story of collaboration among Malian, French,
Egyptian and Italian individuals, slaves and kings, scientists and tomb
robbers, to bring an exotic, regal and exceedingly rare gift to Enlightenment-Era
France. Like the story’s principal characters, we ended up somewhere
other than we had imagined we were going to at the outset of the journey.
But the road from there to here, like that taken by the Malian former
slave and the French scientist, was also one of discovery.”
The producer, Basil Jones noted
“We have been inspired by the Bamana and
Bozo puppetry traditions of Mali since our period in Botswana when my
partner, Adrian Kohler, brought a Malian puppet back from a buying trip
to Johannesburg and I was subsequently involved in the acquisition of
a collection of puppets from Mali for the National Museum and Art Gallery.
This puppetry tradition is important for world puppetry in that it is
one of the few still very much part of village life, entertainment and
rites of transition. Not only that, but the actual puppets themselves
are created within an extremely rich sculptural tradition.”
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Artist: THAMI KITTY
Title: Crocodile
Size: 12 x 67 x 29 cm
Media: Wood
Price: R 9 000
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