Phalaenopsis Anna-Larati Soekardi

"I do botanical art because I can draw. I have been lucky; one door has opened another for me. At an exhibition at DUT, I saw that I could sell work and make money from my art". He adds that he is one of only a few men who do botanical art in South Africa (on the 2010 Botanical Biennale held at Kirstenbosch he was one of four men out of a total of fifty-one artists exhibiting) "possibly this is because men do not have the patience required!"

When asked what it is about plants that he enjoys Sibonelo Chiliza explains, "it has to do with the freshness and colour. When you are sitting out there and you are working you don't feel like you are working, in a botanical garden you hardly get people disturbing you". He uses Lyra pencils, the botanical artist's pencil of choice, they are oil based and have an incredible range of colours. For Chiliza the complicated part of botanical art is getting started, in planning the composition. He usually starts at the bottom of the plant, meticulously working his way up. "Gillian Condy taught me a lot, even though she prefers to work in watercolour, she also taught me ink work for book illustration”. Chiliza has worked on images for three books including Clivia, Nature and Nurture by Dirk Swanevelder and Roger Fisher. He has taken part in several group exhibitions and has won awards on the three SANBI Kirstenbosch Biennales that he has participated in.

When Sibonelo Chiliza works time seems to stand still and his calm permeates the studio. He draws from live plants and to scale (using a maths divider) to get accurate measurements. He has no particular species preference but is fussy about what he selects to draw. The form and colours have to be just right.