Allen Kupeta’s art knows no borders at RedFest

The world of art, and artistry, certainly holds a unique power to be able to empower artists towards determining their destinies for themselves.

The power of art to change lives through something as basic as inspiration can be seen in the journey to RedFest taken by Cosmo City-based painter Allen Kupeta, who has been a journalist for over three decades.

“I’ve been painting since 2001. I had a friend who was an artist, and I told myself that I could also do it. That’s when I started learning to paint,” Kupeta reflected, on July 28, as he happily engaged with RedFest patrons who could not resist coming over to his stand to appreciate his immense talent. “I was actually fascinated by those cartoons in the magazines. I started out trying to draw those, and then, finally, I arrived at my own style of drawing, as you see now.”

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Although born in Harare, Zimbabwe, Kupeta has been a resident of South Africa for over a decade. He openly talked about refraining from detailing the faces of the characters he paints, as he feels that this could result in the creation of sad faces in his realistic, colourful representations of rural village life. In honesty, eyes do tend to betray a lot of what can be hidden through the masterful stoke of a brush – in hues of charcoal, beautified in acrylic paints.

“What I try to do to put in emotion, instead of painting in eyes, I use gestures to show emotions,” Kupeta illustrated, pointing out the emotions of contentment, fellowship, and friendship captured in his artworks on display. “If I put in eyes, the painting is not going to tell the story that I want to convey. A lot of people don’t want sad people in their house, you know?”

Kupeta shared how the opportunity to exhibit, market, and sell his artwork at RedFest came about for him this year, concluding with a note of appreciation over how the weekend went for him in Morningside.

“I was just browsing on social media when I saw a post by a lady. She was interested in my works after I showed her some of them, and invited me to come exhibit at this event to see how people like it, and the response has been fine,” Kupeta concluded. “I have sold a couple of smaller paintings, as well as one big one. It was worth it.”

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