Keerate the distinctive decorator
Spira Tlhankane | Friday September 2, 2016 15:04
Keerate’s home in Kopong is a typical example of what the man does for various clients. Outside, there are different palette chairs decorated with Glascon paints. He recycles wooden pallets to make indoor or outdoor chairs and benches. Being a man who works well with paint, Keerate has discovered creative and beautiful ways of making his furniture unique. For those who love their quite mornings with coffee or hot afternoons with ice cold drinks, the palette chairs are just the perfect way to pimp one’s style.
As soon as one gets into Keerate’s house, the walls welcome one into the painter’s space. Every visual artist has their own equivalent of a painter’s canvas, but with Keerate, the walls in his house are where he does it all. From ragging, rag rolling, plastic bagging, distressing, dragging, colour washing, rubbing, mubbling and stenciling, the talented artist has experimented with them all. In his bathroom Keerate has applied a ceiling mural to create an outdoor feeling while indoors. A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. Keerate does not stop at that, he also applies his painting effects to furniture like wardrobes and kitchen units. Additionally, the former art teacher also puts wallpapers on the wall.
Keerate told Arts & Culture, he mostly works with carpenters and shows them different types of designs to work on. “I apply the final touches. I mostly do the paint effects, wallpaper hanging and stenciling,” he said. He said he uses different colour schemes depending on the client’s choice.
Looking back, Keerate studied art at Molepolole College of Education and completed his studies in 1989. A year later he went on to teach art as a subject in Kopong. On September 1991 he switched to Mogoditshane Junior Secondary School until 1995. Keerate then went on to pursue his degree studies in art in the United Kingdom. While he was there Keerate managed to enroll in other courses like paint effects. When he came back in the year 2000, Keerate continued his career as an art teacher at Ledumang Senior Secondary School. From there he went to teach at Molefhi Senior Secondary School until 2007 when he got a job at Department of Technical and Vocation Education and Training (DTVET). There, Keerate developed the art syllabus for Oodi College of Applied Arts and Technology. He also has a diploma in Interior Design.
Keerate said the work he does today is done on a part-time basis because of his full-time job at the DTVET. He recently won second prize for furniture and deco-Afro visual market at the just-ended Botswana Consumer Fair.
Going forward, Keerate said he would open a workshop at his home in Kopong where he would design all he can.