Not scared to live his passion or name his price art finds a new place to hang
ALISTAIR FLOOD chatted to prolific Plett-based artist William Mwale
BORN in 1985, William Mwale originally hails from Malawi where his talent in art, among so many others, was first noticed in school by both his teachers, who would have him drawing on the board and his fellow students, who would get him to draw cartoon characters.
At this stage, he was developing his technique by watching online art videos and it was not until he noticed art for sale in local shops in Lilongwe that he realised his passion for art could be developed into a paying career.
William was fortunate that his talent was recognised by the established artist Nyangu Chodola, who worked producing drawings and pictures for their local tourist market. He channelled William’s talent into a commercial product, creating wildlife pictures that could be sold.
While William was successful and made a living with wildlife art, he knew that he would prefer doing portraits.
His career took a turn when in 2012 he was appointed for a fixed term of two years to the Visual Arts Commission of Malawi to fill a role of developing art in the country. By 2015, he hosted his first solo exhibition at La Galleria in Lilongwe, where the 25 pictures on sale sold out on the opening night.
• 2014-2017: William exhibited at the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi’s arts festival.
•2018: He won the La Galleria award for the best portrait artist in Malawi. Since then, several of his original works have been acquired for private collections in South Africa as well as Europe.
William moved to South Africa in 2018, initially to Cape Town via Mpumalanga and then, like so many of us, he relocated to Plettenberg Bay.
On moving to Plett in 2019, he started by selling his works to a dealer in Knysna where they were specifically aimed at the tourist market. However, over the years, William’s real interest had moved from tourist work to portraits, and he saw his move to Plett as an opportunity to develop this side of his oeuvre.
He works mainly in acrylics and currently on abstract portraits, although still recognisable as the original subject. He of course still paints animals and recently completed a commission for Plett locals Diana and Kirsten.
This is what they had to say: “William is a master at what he does. We lost two of our beloved dogs within a week of each other last October and we had been wanting to remember them in a special way.
“We saw some work William had done and immediately knew this was how we wanted to commemorate two extraordinary souls. We cannot begin to explain just how perfectly he captured their personalities and features. It literally brought tears to our eyes.”
A selection of his work can also be seen at Lookout Beach, but like all beach-based activates and at a majority of Garden Route businesses, sales have taken a great tumble with the enforced beach closures, curfew restrictions, and the booze ban on restaurants.
So William was delighted to be offered wall space at Love of Linen in The Market Square by owner Inge van Renen.
Inge told CXPRESS that while everyone was suffering, she was delighted to be able to help out and hoped that, if successful, this initiative could be developed further.
She is excited about the fact that William will be in the shop in person on Friday, February 29 from 10 am onwards, working on a painting and chatting with customers.
Like all artists, his work varies in price and is dependent on such things as size and detail but a reasonably-sized piece currently sells in the region of R4,000 to R6,000. Unlike many artists, William is not hesitant about naming his price and believes a tradesman is worthy of his hire.
He can be contacted via Love of Linen or on the William Mwale Art Facebook page, where he is available for commission work.