Inside artist Godfrey Majadibodu’s studio

2026-03-17 - 05:54

It’s a quiet place, but every now and then you can hear cars and trucks and whatever roar past on the N3 highway. Linbro Park is where artist Godfrey Majadibodu’s studio and living space give him breathing room to create. It’s been a long road, and it’s been tough, but the adage has proven true in his case, ’cause here’s an artist who has never allowed life’s challenges to stop him from chasing his dream. There are works scattered all over the place. Some lean against walls, others hang and are completed, while some more are still on easels, ready to have conversations with their creator. That’s the feeling you get when you step inside the studio. It’s a place of creativity, and it’s everywhere. Majadibodu calls it emotion. “It demands a lot from you,” he said. “My work is about expressing what exists in the daily lives of people living here. That emotion must come through the painting.” Presently, he’s working on a large piece titled The Stupidity In My Land. It’s rectangular, very green in hue, and when you stare at it shows a reclining figure. But it’s the meaning that’s the sync. “That is where the ‘stupid’ begins,” he said. “To be an artist, you must have patience and attention. Sometimes you must allow yourself to be a little foolish so that you can do what is truly inside you.” ‘Sometimes you must be a little foolish’ Majadibodu said he does not try to dominate his work. “I don’t force a painting,” he said. “Rather, I communicate with it. I let the work guide me so that the people who see it can find their own meaning.” That’s the rationale behind The Stupidity In My Land, In oculis spectantis. That sense of freedom has taken decades to arrive, and he’s relishing it. The Stupidity In My Land by Godfrey Majadibodu hangs in the background. Picture Hein Kaiser Majadibodu was born in Alexandra but spent much of his childhood moving between the city and rural areas. “I was born in Johannesburg,” he said. “But as a teenager, I moved around a lot. We spent time in rural areas near Hammanskraal in a place called Rechtersloot, and I also went to school in Limpopo for a while before returning.” Eventually, the family settled in Randburg for a time. By then, Majadibodu was around 13 or 14 years old and already drawing constantly. But life was not easy. His mother worked as a domestic worker for an American family, and money was scarce. Majadibodu left school early and found work washing cars at a car dealership wash bay in Sandton. “I was only fourteen when I started working,” he said. “At that time, many young people had to leave school to help support their families.” Life was not easy for young Godfrey The American family his mother worked for soon noticed him. “They asked my mother who I was and why I wasn’t at school,” he said. “She told them that I liked drawing.” And it was that moment that changed his life forever. Before that, at school, Majadibodu had already developed a reputation for his sketches. “I used to draw my classmates doing funny things during lessons,” he shared. “Then one of the teachers asked who could draw well enough to enlarge pictures from the textbook.” The class pointed at him. “I started enlarging the drawings from the book onto big sheets of paper,” he said. “Lizards, flowers, diagrams. I copied them exactly so the teacher could use them for lessons.” That’s because textbooks were scarce, and they all had to share three to a book. Now pursuing his own strokes. Picture Hein Kaiser Also Read: From Benoni with love: baker turns cakes into yum Those drawings eventually reached the American employer, too. “He asked me to bring my drawings so that he could see them,” Majadibodu said. “The next day, he told me he had found an art school for me.” That school was FUBA (Federated Union of Black Artists), and it was one of the few places during apartheid where black artists could formally study. The American employer paid the tuition. “I studied there for four years and completed my diploma,” he said. “After that, I continued with graphic design studies at the Johannesburg Art Foundation.” It was at the height of Apartheid Then, by the late 1980s, Majadibodu started building a career as an artist. Especially as a black man at the height of the struggle, it was not an easy sortie. Sign writing helped pay the bills for a while, and then galleries began selling some of his work. Pieces were shown across the country, and bit by bit, he started building a career. “Art is not an easy career,” he said. “You must have patience. Sometimes there is no money, so you do different kinds of work just to survive.” His first major solo exhibition came in the mid-1990s at a gallery in Zoo Lake. Since then, there have been exhibitions, collaborations, and even an artist residency with a whisky distillery, where he spent three months producing work inspired by the distillery’s programme. Now 59, Majadibodu is at peace with the uncertainty of the art world. He exhibits at ArtEye in Dainfern and said that he has taken a stand because, for many years, artists often end up creating what the market demands “because you need to make a living.” “But then you realise you are not showing people who you really are. My signature is the brand now,” he said. “If I sign a painting and someone looks at it, feels joy and wants to live with it, then that painting becomes the bread.” Now Read: Meet the Benoni woman turning trophies into art