In an interview with Arts&Culture, Serokolo said the world is increasingly becoming internet-centric, making it crucial for artists to tap into the digital space for their careers.
The artist, who comes from a family of six, said his brother who is a visual artist, drove him to experiment with digital illustration. Although he has always been in awe of his brother’s drawings, the Mmadinare native stated that it was his brother’s earnings from the portrait drawings that motivated him to explore his artistic skills.
He recalled that his first effort at sketching was when he was a university student studying a drawing module. Thereafter, he never looked back as he spent more time on digital illustrations during the 2020 total shutdown. Serokolo stated that Ivan Coop, Cardo Mosweu (Zodiak99x), and Kuki Blacc Freeman were the three local artists who had the largest influence on his digital illustrations.
He maintained that digital illustration has become his hobby, and he produced quite a number of illustrations. Serokolo said the process of creating illustrations is fun because it gives him something to work on and the freedom to be creative. “With most of my digital illustrations being people, I tend to use their pictures as references and also the things that they love and their favourite colours as backgrounds to the illustrations,” he said.
He indicated that one of the difficult things is changing people’s perceptions of his work. The gifted artist stated that many people believe that because his work is done digitally, it must be quick and simple to complete.
“People don’t value digital illustration as highly as they do traditional drawing or painting,” he continued. He also pointed out that having no softwares to do the work is one of the problems he encounters. Serokolo further shared that the “Almond Blossoms” by Vincent van Gogh has always been his favourite illustration due to the message of hope behind it.
“It is a painting which depicts blossoming flowers. But recently, I believe a piece by Wilson Ngoni called Atavistic Reminiscence and is captioned “certain memories are painful but their time is worth a celebration”. He explained this means that good and bad memories are intertwined; just as people celebrate the good, they should not overlook the bad ones but celebrate them too. The art piece is a head figure but bricks are used instead of normal skin.
