Garth Wareley, who goes by AwehMigo, is a visual artist from Cape Town, South Africa. He has more than 15 years of experience in design, graffiti, visual identity, creative direction and of course, painting.
His style is easily identifiable with semi-realistic visuals, bold colours and balancing tones, often being described as a window into a novel or another world. His work can be seen on walls and buildings across Cape Town, with his iconic weaver-inspired works adding colour and beauty all the way from Observatory to the CBD.
His passion for painting began during his early years of attending high school at Zonnebloem Nest. Inspired by the local Kwaito and HipHop culture which Cape Town exuded at the time, drawing and painting became an integral part of his life. Since then, he’s painted multiple awe-inspiring pieces across the country.
By way of formal training, Garth has qualifications from both Ruth Prowse School of Art and Concept Interactive, in Graphic Design and Interactive Media respectively. His early work includes painting backboards for various South African TV shows, doing multiple visual activations for Red Bull at Plett Rage and Redbull Amaphiko, taking part in the Converse ClashWall activation in 2014 and doing a range of personal projects for clients.
Some of his later work includes being the lead artist for the film Bring It On World Wide, taking part in the Halls South Africa “Own The Moment” campaign and doing Live Art installations for Design Indaba. Wareley has also exhibited his work multiple times over the years, including shows titled “Exploration of Vriet a Kak” and “The Reason Why”.
When asked about what makes him different to other artists and why he loves what he does, Wareley cites his obsession with getting a job done the right way, no matter what. Every piece of work is a challenge, a challenge to fight the weather, a challenge to push his physical limits and a challenge to expand his mental outlook. While being hugely inspired by nature, everything about painting also motivates him: the ability to play between reality and fiction, the way an artist’s body moves when they paint and being able to mold his own story through his work.
Cape {town} Etc had the privilege of seeing Wareley work his magic live. He painted a rad protea-inspired mural, with permission from the owner of the building. It’s located on the corner of Leeuwen and Buitengracht Street in the CBD.
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