Sechaba Nyenye was born in Ficksburg (1982) raised in Maputsoe, Lesotho, and based in Cape Town. He met Ndzube in mid-2022 and assisted in the fabrication of the sculptural elements of Masemola Road.
Nyenye’s key interests are fashion and music. For the last 4 years, he has been working on an album with his band ‘Nobody For President’ and wanted to create a costume for each band member, but lacking the means to buy the materials needed, he would seek and collect remnants left by other beaders in Rondebosch. Instead of using these completed masks as costumes for his band, he gave them a life as artworks. Nyenye found that creating these masks gave him a sense of peace and developed his sense of patience.
Nyenye uses beads for their cultural significance across southern Africa and what they represent for him - pride, power, and identity. He is interested in the fact that beads were used historically as currency, and continue to have value in trade as jewelry, ornamentation, and works of art.
Across Nyenye’s paintings, a recurring figure is that of a village man who comes to the city to pursue his dream of being an artist. Though depicted in surreal, spectral environments he states this figure is based on his own life and the story of his uncle whom he had never met but had made music and busked around the mines of Johannesburg, never to return to the village that he left.
