Hailing from Pitsane in the southern part of Botswana, Manele shared through an interview with Arts&Culture that his art serves as an antidote to his everyday life challenges. He stated that once he immerses himself in crafting his art nothing else matters. “My love or motivation started just as an escapism basically an escape for me. It was an escape from the world for me, the realities of this world. As mostly we find ourselves always going through something in this life,” Manele said. Though his venture into visual art was mostly purported by escapism from this side of the world, Manele stated that he was also influenced by his love for anime, which he became besotted with growing up. He said anime as most people call it, serves as a typical example for escaping from the real world as it is all about superpowers and superstitions.
“I grew up watching the Dragon Ball Z anime, which featured Go Ku the likes of Naruto. I was into that and that is the time when I developed the love for all of this as it took me away from the realities of this world,” Manele happily said. Little did he know that not only was this reason enough for him to fall in love with art and anime, it would later influence his speciality in doing art. As he reminisced, he shared that when he picked up the pencil all he could draw was the cartoons or characters he watched from the anime shows. “From my time of watching anime, that is the time I developed the love and I started doing my own comic and developed my own stories that tell a story that runs in my mind,” he said. Though he specialises in cartoons/anime drawings, Manele highlighted that he has not restricted himself to only that as he taps into other areas. “At the moment I only do animated cartoons but not in motion just still pictures. But that does not mean I am not doing that only, I also do abstract painting and masquerade art, among other things,” he said.
Just like many other visual artists in the country, Manele stressed that the industry has not been friendly to him as he finds the going tough. “It has not really been easy for me in this industry actually because I have been trying to exhibit and I haven’t been able to because it is always lack of space. I find that the stalls are already full. In terms of sales, it is also not easy,” Manele shared. However, he hopes that Mother Luck will soon locate him and he hopes to publish his comic book once he lands a sponsorship. “The first thing that I want to do is to publish the comic book which I have already compiled, and it is now ready. The title of the book is Amanelle and I am only waiting for a sponsor to enable me to finally publish the book,” Manele said.
