South African street artist brings new style of art to Seychelles |25 May 2016

A street artist from Johannesburg, South Africa Wesley Pepper yesterday met some local artists to exchange ideas and experiences.

This activity has been organised by Seylar and the National Arts Council (Nac) to mark FetAfrik 2016.

It was officially opened yesterday morning at the National Art Gallery by Peter Sinon, who sits on the FetAfrik organising committee.

Besides being a street artist, Mr Pepper is an independent book publisher and social entrepreneur.

He has taken part in numerous exhibitions in South Africa and the United States.

This brilliant artist wanted to bring a new form of art to Seychelles called speaking artist, using the streets as a bulletin board for social awareness and change the world using the knowledge of words.

Such exchange was to enable Mr Pepper to enhance the knowledge of our local artists on new ways of doing art in Africa, discover new techniques that are being used especially in Johannesburg.

Guests at the exchange included the vice-chairman of Seylar James Auguste, the chief executive of the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) Alvin Laurence, among others.

Mr Pepper pointed out that art is a tool for social exchange and for artists to be able to express their opinion or feelings.

“I am a visual artist; I work with paints on a wall or paper. I would like to bring something new to Seychelles that has not been done yet, with a different element. I am going to engage the locals in Seychelles and introduce a new style of art called speaking artist to see how people will adapt to it,” he said.

Mr Auguste said that Seylar with Nac and the FetAfrik committee have made it possible to organise such activity.

“We hope that such artist will bring a new element of art in Seychelles, so that our young artists could also benefit and learn new techniques. There is a new style of art called speaking artist, where the artist goes on the street and expresses himself with words, interact with other people to discuss about social problems,” he explained.