Visual artist Monotypebabe creating a niche for herself in Johannesburg as a young female printmaker

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

When the country went into lockdown in 2020, many jobs were threatened as companies either scaled down operations or stopped all activities depending on whether they were regarded as providing essential services or not.

The creative sector was almost completely shut down, and artist Lebogang ‘Monotypebabe ‘ Mabusela, who at the time had a job at printmaking studio LL Editions in Newtown, found herself without a job.

She then had to think, creatively and fast as she could to keep her head above the murky waters of a life without an income.

A practicing visual artist who also sharpened her print making skills at the same printmaking studio, LL Editions, where she interned after graduating with  BA honours degree in fine art from Wits, before getting an administration job that she lost during lockdown, it is then that the idea of starting a printmaking studio of her own came about.

“I was back home at my mother’s house in Mabopane, without money and without a job. But the idea of starting a printmaking studio, geminated then. But the problem is I had no money to buy equipment. I researched about what printmaking equipment was available on the market in South Africa. It was then that I found out that not only was there a local company manufacturing this equipment, but they also came in small sizes, which is what I needed to start my business Monotypebabe,” she said.

But even when she found out about the availability of a small format printmaking equipment, her problems were not over.

“I found out that the equipment would cost around R5000, which neither my mother nor I had at the time. It is then that a friend suggested a try the crowd-funding option.  I fundraised through Back A Buddy platform. The response was huge as many people were touched by my story and they contributed whatever amount they could, and I ended up raising R8000. I bought the machine and started printmaking for a few friends in my bedroom at home. I had many of my friends come to me for printmaking, and that is how my business started,” said Mabusela who is known as Monotypebabe  in art circles.

From that small beginning, she has not looked back as her business is used by many an artist to do printmaking in collaboration with her for their original work. She seems to have found her niche in the visual art business, dong printmaking on a small format machine.

This year, I was actually struck by her courage to participate at the Turbine Art Fair where some of the prints she had made were exhibited. Looking at her age, I was quite impressed by not only her foresight to participate at the Tuirbine art fair, but her business acumen and how professional her presentation looked in her fair cubicle even though the prints were actually small in size.

“This helps in many ways, for example because the size of the prints we make are of a small size, they are affordable as one also serves money on framing costs as because of their small size, framing these art works is also relatively cost effective” she explained.

Monotypebabe in this interview held at Bag Factory Artist Studios,where her printmaking studio is based, said that printmaking has been her special love ever since from the time she was still at varsity.

“While other students focused on other areas of art practice, I fell in love with the process of printmaking, as I would visit printmaking technicians at Wits in their studios begging them to show me how it is done. That is apart from the formal lectures they presented to us students. I learned a lot from the informal lessons I received outside formal lecture hours from those technicians,” she explained.

The artist however explained that often the public misunderstand prints as photocopies of an original art work.

“A print is in fact an original art work, and printmaking is just another art medium, just like drawing and painting are. It is a process on its own, and each print that is produced by this slow elaborate process is technically an original art work, and each print is created carefully and consistently, requiring a lot of technical skill and precision. The thing is prints come in editions, and the fewer the editions are, the higher the value. However print edition one is not necessarily more valuable than print number 10,” explained Monotypebabe.

Though she often works closely with artists when it comes to printmaking, she prefers to do printmaking in a thematic sequence.

“However that might change as I am still trying to figure out what works best, depending on the exhibition that is being planned. But yes, I collaborate with several artists in print-making,”  she said.

When the artist was born in Mabopane 25 years ago, her mom took her to Hammanskraal , just outside Pretoria, where she was looked after by her grandmother until the age of 10 when her grandmother died.

“Then it was back to Mabopane to live with my mother where I continued with schooling in primary until high school. I however never got a chance to learn art while at high school as the school, that I went to did not offer art classes. But I knew that I was creative, even though at school I studied mainly math and science subjects.

Monotypebabe was however offered places to study art at both the University of Johannesburg and Wits in 2014 after undergoing a series of interviews and tests that basically tested her ability to draw. She went through flawlessly, while witnessing others being eliminated  from the list of potential candidates for learning art.

“Well, I eventually chose Wits where I finished an Honours degree in fine art in 2017.

When it comes to my own art practice, besides printmaking, I have been working on a series for years now, cwhich deals with the destruction of patriarchal practices in society. It is partly a performance project, that sees me manufacture plastic guns to create an installation. I have done quite a number of these exhibitions, including one at Latitudes Art Fair in 2019, which attracted a lot of attention.

“Some of the people, who came to the exhibition actually engaged with the installation in a meaningful way. Some of them, especially men remarked that I was an angry woman.

“But for me these plastic guns, which I sell on an online shop, mean different things to different people. A gun could be seen for example as an erotic instrument, sexually speaking, and so it is not always a weapon. For example in Setswana, my mother tongue, a gun is called sethunya, a flower, and therefore there are many meanings attached to a gun and can sometimes therefore be regarded as a tool of sexual liberation,”  Monotype babe explained. This series is ongoing and she is currently working on the next installment, which will be exhibited online soon.

But otherwise, If Monotypebabe is not working on this series, she is fount in her printmaking studio at the Bag Factory working on the prints with other artists.