Name: Art Exhibit. Tsholo Motong: Ya Balozi
Start: 2025-10-25T16:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-10-25T20:00:00-07:00
Location: Art House SF

Tsholo "Splash" Motong from Soweto, South Africa fuses design, art, and African spirituality in his work.
About this Event

Tsholo "Splash" Motong lives in Soweto, South Africa.

Soweto is home to over 1.2 million black South Africans speaking Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho, Setswana, Tshivenda, and many other local languages. Soweto was in the middle of the struggle against the South African white-minority apartheid in the 1970s. Soweto was to home to Nelson Mandela and Trevor Noah who described it in his book "Born a Crime".

Local scenes and people from Soweto inspire Tsholo's work.

Sometimes, he paints African healers and goddesses from the Zulu people of South Africa, who were called "witch doctors" by the Christian settlers.

Sometimes, it is the scenes in Soweto before local elections, with all the money thrown by the candidates to win over the locals.

Sometimes, his work is about the local entrepreneurs of Johannesburg (or "Jozi" as locals call it), street vendors with babies on their backs.

Sometimes, it is the local multi-generational gangsters who "started stealing chocolate bars as an 8-year toddler".

Tsholo tells their stories. And somehow turns them from regular people to colorful demigods.

But in addition to storytelling, Tsholo's medium is so uniquely African. For many of his paintings, he collects unique African fabrics from different parts of Africa and then creates fabric collages from them. His colorful fabric mosaic tells us a story of the rich and colorful history of South Africa.

See Tsholo "Splash" Motong's work in person at our closing reception on Saturday, October 25th.

During the reception, Max (the gallery owner) will share the story of Tsholo, talk about different African fabrics used by the artist, will share the story of Soweto, will talk about Ubuntu and show photos of Soweto.

You can also see his work during the gallery's regular business hours: Wed-Sat 11-7, Sun 11-5. The gallery will be closed October 15 - 19.

About Art House SF Gallery

A San Francisco art gallery with a mission to introduce more people to eclectic art from the most remote and undiscovered parts of the world. We're located in the famous Castro District - a neighborhood of freedom, acceptance, creativity and diversity.

2324 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94114

[email protected] | www.arthousesf.com | @arthousesf

About the Artist:

Tsholo “Splash” Motong is a South African artist and a fashion designer.

Being born and bred in the biggest township in South Africa - Soweto, his keen inspiration has always been influenced by the vibrant & colorful lifestyle that Soweto offers.

Soweto has always influenced the country through politics, sports, music, and culture. It is also the only place in the world with two Nobel Prize winners: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

Splash discovered his creativity and artistic potential at a young age. As a colorful artist, he relishes using bright colors (“a spice of life,” as he calls them). His main inspiration is his grandmother, hence the dominance of women in his artwork.

“She was my pillar, she raised me up from the ground up. She used to do crafts like knitting and crochet, so that’s how I started learning how to work with fabrics and colors and enjoy textures. She didn’t scold me when I told her I want to venture into this career.”

Whenever he uses fabrics, he ensures that they have African roots: Shweshwe from Lesotho and South Africa, Swazi from Swaziland, Kalanga from Zimbabwe, and different fabric prints from Ghana.

“I do use different fabrics from different cultures, countries and tribes to tell a single story that resonates with all the cultures.”