African Cartel is an online marketplace for African artists, a website that aims to provide a platform for talented artists in Africa who deserve recognition and a place to showcase & sell their art.

"Not only are we about art in a big way, but we're even more about the artists behind it. All artists have their own stories and this site is about helping to tell them." describes their about us page. 

The story behind African Cartel is as inspiring as the artists featured on their site. The traffic signals in Africa are also known as robots, and you will find many African artists selling their art at these intersections. A place where you can see them desperately and painstakingly looking for prospective buyers.  

Not that their art work isn't good enough to deserve a space in a decent art gallery, in fact the website explains that their art is amazingly creative, considering the fact that these artists use a lot of recycled material like wood, tin cans and wires etc.

"After observing this interesting intersection marketplace they traded at over a period of time and chatting with the artists, we really got a better understanding of what they did and the hurdles they faced. We started thinking around ways to create a platform which could be established to help market and sell their work online and to get a larger audience." describes the website. 

So they started off with a campaign called "Robot Artists" for which they have also created a documentary through which they wish to tell the world about this group of artists in a visual way. Other than that you can find 'Bead & Wire Art' & 'Township Art' along with truly inspiring stories of aspiring artists on Africa. 

As a visitor, not only can you buy art, but also get involved by contributing the creative process (buying materials and provide artistic knowledge), get behind the artists, provide suggestions for other aspiring artists or by simply spreading the word. 

Check out this documentary video about Robot Artists:

"As we are just starting out, we really encourage people to get involved or contact us with any feedback to help us make this a success! A dream we'd love to come to life in the near future is to set up a modest workshop space in Cape Town that the artists can work from. The vision is to enable a creative and collaborative environment for artists to work with access to different tools and materials. 

It is going to cost about $540 a month and as we are completely self funded at the moment we welcome any contributions on the site."