ROXANNE MOONEYS
Most students are familiar with the feeling of moving into a new room at residence or into a new flat and having no idea how to decorate the bleak and blank walls you will have to look at daily.
DIY tips on Pinterest and posters from Mr. Price Home are one way to solve your dilemma, but what if you want something a little fancier?
Samuel Sendzul (20), a BCom Mathematical Science student at Stel- lenbosch University (SU) was one of those poor souls struggling to decorate his room.With the knowledge that two of his friends, Monique du Plessis and Elizabeth Klopper, who study Fine Arts and Visual Communication Design respectively, sometimes have artworks that do not make it into their academic portfolios, he reached out to see if he could use some of their work to decorate his room.
Out of Sendzul’s struggle grew Outlines Art Collective.Described by the founders as “beautiful, a affordable art pieces created by students with students in mind”.Outlines Art Collective is still a reliatively new venture, and the business has only been fully operational since the start of the second semester of this year. While there are many galleries in Stellenbosch, the works on sale do not t the average student budget. Out- lines Art Collective bridges this gap.
“I thought it would be cool if art students could sell their spare artworks to other students to decorate their rooms,” said Sendzul, who admitted that being a nance major he isn’t ex- actly an art connoisseur.
For the average student owning art is a novelty and that is something that Outlines Art Collective seeks to change.
You can purchase good quality artworks while at the same time sup- porting a venture that is unique to SU. What is convenient about Outlines Art is that purchases are made entirely on- line through the business’s Instagram page.
Prints are displayed on the business website as well as their Facebook and Instagram pages.Many of the prints currently avail- able for purchase were done by Du Plessis, who stated that she draws on personal influences in the creation of her art.Du Plessis also said her art is most often an expression of her trying to make sense of the world, and that this is the feeling they hope to create for the clients who view their work.
Klopper’s work is not on display currently, but she is responsible for the designs on the business’s logo, flyers and other promotional material.Besides Du Plessis and Klopper, there are around ten other art students whose prints can be viewed and purchased through Instagram.
All of the works on display are carefully selected by the founders themselves and they try to include a diverse range of styles so that there is something that speaks to all the different students on campus.The business is also entirely self-financed. Sendzul, Du Plessis and Klopper said that they plan to only print ten copies of each available design so that the works retain a degree of exclusivity. Thus far it has been easy to attract other artists to join their venture.
Du Plessis said that students in the Art Department are interconnected, and that is one way in which she has been able to recruit friends and fellow art students. Artists, however, have also approached the group themselves via Instagram to have their art dis- played and put up for sale.Speaking from their own experiences, Du Plessis and Klopper both said that it is daunting when you are a young artist of only nineteen or twenty years old and you have to show your work to other people.
Through Outlines Art they hope to create a space where young artists like themselves can be eased into the idea of displaying their art for the world to view without being terrified of the commentary it will attract.In the near future the group plans to have a proper exhibition, though for now they are content with the balance they have struck between managing their academics as well as their new business.
To view the works that are avail- able for purchase students can visit the group’s website, outlinesartcollective.
