Lady Skollie gives voice to creatives

As a feminist artist and activist Lady Skollie has often captured the zeitgeist of SA.

However, this time she drops her paintbrush for a microphone as she gives a voice to local African creatives as a presenter for DW Culture’s art segment for Afrimaxx.

Under the The Home Channel’s umbrella, the show sees Lady Skollie, real name Laura Windvogel, speak to a number of local talents in the art space as they illuminate the globe on their groundbreaking creations.

Not new to taking this position, Lady Skollie has hosted for Rocking the Daisies among others.

Between laughs and her love for Libras, we speak to her about this new venture we find out what to expect and how she is quickly taking the mantle of the art world’s Oprah.

What excited you about being a part of this show and what you would get to experience?

Germany has a big audience that loves art in Africa, sometimes a bit too much but they love fresh things from here and they are always on a quest to find fresh things from here. So what was cool for me was that I was a medium to find that.

They could have gone with different types of artists or they could have gone with a different type of host and I think that’s what excites me, it was a good combination of people, places and art.

Was there any interview that stuck with you the most on the show?

I really liked speaking to Blessing Ngobeni. I’ve known him for quite a while but we both had artworks at Bag Factory and we are both Libras. I just love interviewing a Libra, especially Libras who are artists.

We were out of breath from complimenting each other. It was super fun and he is such an engaging person. He has won awards I wish to win like the Standard Bank Award Young Artist Award.

We still have people who are shy of viewing art, especially abstract artworks. What words of encouragement can you give them to engage local art pieces?

My mother paid so much money for me to go and study art and still to this day she doesn’t feel comfortable to go into a gallery.

With things like apartheid, they kept those things away from us very strategically. The role of an artist is to talk about society and the role of the consumer of art is to teach themselves. Art is in such a good space at the moment and people are so much more open to be engaging it.

You called yourself the “art world Oprah” at the launch – should we be expecting more of you on our screens?

I’m at that age where my main love is art and producing it and it’s the one thing I want to achieve but I definitely think it will include TV.

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