As a visual arts teacher, I have to keep my mind open. I have explores styles from pointillism to cubism.

[I] was always my dream to attend the Art Institute. I have always had this zeal to become the best that I can be and I saw that this institution will act as an avenue to me achieving that goal. I applied to the institution and got accepted based on my impressive portfolio.

I've been making music for as long as I can remember. I would, as a kid, just sing little ideas or be making something.

I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.

I had my first exhibition in September, 2012. This was when I first introduced the public to my style of the incorporation of cloth in my paintings. It was well received and everyone was fascinated with the work on display. I also invited other young aspiring artist to display they work which was also well received.

Trying to be really dark and alienating just felt exhausting to me, so I started going back to the music that I grew up with, whether it was African music or pop music. It took me away from being overly self-conscious about what I was doing.

Of course I had the parallel of having the early years of my life being spent during apartheid, and then having a lot of awful poverty going on around me while I lived in this bubble of middle-classness, but I was a child, and I only really started to (I hope) understand all of that fairly recently.