Capturing life in the Orange Farm neighborhood of Johannesburg, South Africa in a series of lino cut prints, is the latest ongoing project by Sam Djedje.  The artist's works are about growth, transformation, hard work and humility as he sees them in the people in his community.

'Ext 10 Boy' is a child from Orange Farm, where I am from. Some of the kids here don’t have much; they use waste materials like tires, rakes, or even tin to make toys out of them. I wanted to convey that even if these kids don’t have much money to buy toys, they can still manage to stay balanced and be happy, just by playing around with tires.

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'Keep on Stepping' is about people who are trying to push forward. The boy is pulling a trolley with a dice in the back. This signifies people’s ups and downs in life, as well as trying hard and facing challenges. But just like dice, you can’t win every time.

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'The Door' is about opportunities, chances, plans; it is a metaphor for achievements, for stepping into new realms and levels of life’s stages.

Short Series:

'Tin Collectors' Series talks about unemployed people that make a living by collecting tins. I did this work to honor them, because they are not employed, but they manage to do something for themselves.

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'The Gift' Series is about inheritance, like shoes, most of the times are symbolized with roots or originality. So I did those portraits of shoes to symbolize a gift, it can be spiritual or any other kind of a gift.

Sam Djedje is an artist / print maker born in Soweto, South Africa. He studied print making at the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg, and now lives and work in Orange Farm, Johannesburg.