Context (CMS Context)
Artist Biography given by the Kuru Development Trust. 'Xgaiga Qhomatca is in his sixties, having been born on the farm "Uitkoms" in the Ghanzi district, Botswana. He grew up in a large family of eight children and worked as a farm labourer from a young age herding cattle and tending gardens. He never attended formal schooling. The farms were big and unfenced during those years. There were many wild animals and he often went hunting with his father and grandfather. He is well known for his knowledge of the veld and San culture. He remembers seeing herds of springbok, gemsbok and giraffe on the farms where today there is only an occasional kudu to be seen. He also encountered lions and leopards, and sometimes when it rained heavily, elephants would wander down from Lake Ngami into the Ghanzi farming areas.

Xgaiga Qhomatca is married to Ncg'abe Taase, also a member of the Kuru Art Project. Together they have nine children. They depend solely on their art as an income to support their large family. The artist is also a fine performer and instructor of the traditional games, dances and music of the Naro San. He joined the art project in 1997. He started working with oil on canvas but was soon introduced to the lino printing technique, which he enjoys a lot, having since become an expert in colour reduction lino prints. He was chosen as one of four Kuru artists to attend a printmaking workshop, together with some Native American artists, at the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico in July 1999. During this workshop he learned to make hand coloured lithographs. At the Kuru Art Project he also produces intaglio prints. His line and aquatint etchings are outstanding and together with his other work have been sent to various galleries and exhibitions worldwide.'
Taken from http://www.artprintsa.com/xgaiga-qhomatca.html
Event Date 12/2/2014
Author: Rachel Hand

Context (CMS Context)
Presented by The Art Fund and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. An acquisition project to build a collection of modern and contemporary work on paper from Australia, Canada and South Africa was undertaken over 2011-13 with the support of a grant under The Art Fund's RENEW programme. The collection was developed with the expert advice and generous assistance of Annie Coombes and Norman Vorano in relation to South African and Inuit artists respectively. Khadija Carroll, Anita Herle and Diana Wood Conroy also contributed to the selection process. Obtained from the Kuru Development Trust, Ghanzi, Botswana, November 2013.
Event Date 12/2/2014
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Reduction lithograph by Xgaiga Qhomatca titled 'Eland', edition TP [trail print].
Event Date 12/2/2014
Author: maa

Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited: 'Crafting Colour: Beads, Pattern and Painting from the Kalahari', Cambridge MAA South Lecture Room, 24 June 2014 - 28 September 2014. Presented by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The display label text read: 'Some of the most famous San rock art comes from South Africa’s Drakensberg mountains, where the eland is the most commonly depicted animal. Elands are highly prized by hunters as southern Africa's largest antelope, and are sometimes referred to as the 'cattle of the San'.'
Event Date 15/9/2014
Author: Remke van der Velden