MONSTER CLUB

Lehlohonolo Nthabeleng

Iam Lehlohonolo Nthabeleng, I am 20 years of age and from Pretoria. I actually dabble in a lot of art streams, but the most well known to the Wpeople that know me is digital art. I mainly focus on doing portraits of people, aliens and whatever that comes to mind when I design.

Whoinspiredyoutobean artist(personalorfamous) andhowdidthatperson influenceyourartstyle?

“The person who inspired me to be an artist, I would say it is my mother. Ever since I was a kid my mother would encourage me to pursue art, by just doing random stuff like buying me art equipment, stationery or taking me to art places. She also has a artistic side to her, she once pursued and studied fashion and I actually wanted to study that at some point in my life, but I ended up in architecture and I don’t regret that choice.

I can’t exactly pinpoint where I developed my art style, because there was so many influencers in my life like people I knew personally or people on the internet. The person who introduced me to the digital space was my friend Khanya Sodo, she told me to try it out and gave me advice on which equipment to buy and also taught me how to use the applications, I’m certainly grateful shout out to her.”

Howwouldyoudescribeyourartstyle tosomeonethatisanewbieintheart industry?

“When it comes to my art, I don’t like to dwell on the realism aspect of it. I tend to draw cartoons or animation characters, so I would describe my art as animated designs.”

Whatperspectivedoyouhopeto sharewiththeobserverofyourart worksandhowdoyouwantthem tofeel?

“All my artworks are different yet they share the same theme. The theme is about self improvement/ self motivation and not throwing certain things out of proportion. I have a few artworks that have sentimental value to me as they remind me of how I felt when I was designing them, at some point in my artistic journey I felt that my art was mediocre and any random person could be able to do what I was doing.”

One thing you should remind yourself of is that you are a beautiful person inside and out, you are unique and you are great regardless of the situations you find yourself in. You have to always love yourself more!

“I’ve been designing my whole life, but I really had to build the confidence within myself to be able to share my art with the world. I only started posting my art last year. The perspective I would love to share with people is that when you’re feeling sad, unworthy, ugly and you have negative thoughts.”

Whatwouldyousaytrulymakes youstandoutfromotherartistsin theartisticrealm?

“I solely create art for myself, and I am not really concerned about whether the next person likes my art or not as long as I love it than I am content. I just allow the rest of the world to see what I design, because I can and want to do so not because I need people to validate me.”

Whathasbeenthemost significantlesson/syou’velearned inyourartisticjourney?

“‘I would say two of the main lessons I’ve learned is that in life you have to be patient and explore. I have mentioned before that I dabble in a lot of art streams, so with that I had to learn how to be patient while discovering new ways to create art.”