Sesse Elangwe Ngeseli
Visual Artist
ABOUT
My art is a reflection of my life experiences, adventures, hopes, aspirations, and the society I live in. My series, Conversations, stresses on the inseparable relationship between human existence and conversations. This is the link between the conversations of human existence, other existences, and how they are in-separable in all functions. This series also sheds light on our desires. I have grown to understand that without conversations, nothing in this world would work. Both active conversations, which I describe as interacting with others, and passive conversations, which is the act of being in touch with yourself, intuition and thoughts. Without those conversations, the world will be at a stand still. This is why I created Conversations.
With Conversations, I use acrylic medium and pigment on canvas to represent a combination of surrealistic, cubistic figures with lots of realistic inverted face-exaggerated figures, to put my audience into another world of thought and reflection. I call this, Sesse’s style. This is done to represent each stakeholder involved in the conversation process, and to also make my works act as a call of action for people to engage in positive thinking and conversations in order to liberate society. This is my way of raising awareness on issues, which could greatly help develop and heal the society I live in. These conversations are about bad governance, corruption, development, cultural emancipation and other important subjects. From these conversations, people could develop ideas that could lead to the end of forceful immigration, wars, and current crises.
I express my feelings to these subjects with the use of acrylic paint to combine line forms to produce beautiful aesthetic works with exaggerated features like: eyes, noses, ears, and mouths. This is done with the intent of sending a message about what I think we could do to reduce some of the ills our society is facing. The large eyes are represent those who have seen to gain knowledge, which could help another in the conversation process. The big ears are for those who have heard about something in a conversation, which could help another with smaller ears. The ones with big mouths educate people. In my work, I add fabrics to represent Africa, the continent where I come from, and how beautiful it could be with the start of positive conversations.
The Conversation series which started in 2020 has been completed in 2021 with a sub-series title Make We Talk (Let’s Talk) which puts more emphasis on traits of excellence within Black people worldwide. It is a celebration of a community, united by a race, which is confident, free from any form of mental slavery, and ready to achieve their ancestors wildest dreams . Make We Talk is a conversation around Black creativity and positivity.
My art is my existence. My existence is for a mission of change, and for that change to occur. I take my time to work and gather brain-reflecting art pieces, which could inspire and educate anyone who sees it.
Exhibitions:
‘Concordant Conveyances’ at Mitochondria Gallery in Houston
January 29 – February 9, 2022