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Artist at Work Beezy Bailey, paint box

Ja, there’s a mountain view over there,’ says Beezy Bailey, waggling a hand in the general direction of Table Mountain, ‘but it would distract me if I could look at it all day.’ He must be one of the few people in Cape Town who purposefully block a breathtaking view of the mountain in favour of raw roof trusses, cinder blocks and white paint.

(Left: The studio couldn’t be more different from neighbouring houses.)

But anyone who knows anything about Beezy knows that he never does things the same old way everyone else does. From the international fracas over his alter ego Joyce Ntobe’s linocuts being bought by the South African National Gallery for the permanent collection when his own paintings were rejected, to the brouhaha and death threat when he reconfigured a statue of Afrikaner hero Louis Botha as a Xhosa initiate, Beezy Bailey just can’t be bothered with convention or staying in the political good books.

His studio is down a crooked little path a few strides away from the family home. Past the vegetable garden (who would have thought the notorious party animal would be into gardening, but he is), past the compost heap and down the steps guarded by a classical statue of Summer, you suddenly glimpse a building that could have passed as a domestic worker’s khaya in South Africa’s ‘olden days.’ It has the familiar elements of a million simple structures across the country: roughish plaster walls, a cement floor, a sloping zinc roof interspersed with sheets of clear corrugated plastic and basic doors and windows.

Beezy designed his studio himself, with the help of a builder and a draughtsman. ‘I have a problem with architects,’ he explains matter-of-factly, ‘because I consider myself to be an architect. I know what I like in a house and I think I can do better than most of them. Architecture is based on the cube, the ideal proportions of which have been known for centuries. So where did we go so wrong? What happened to style, simplicity, beauty? How did we get from those magnificent 17th century houses in places like Swellendam to the steel and concrete messes on the coast that should just be thrown into the sea off the cliffs they perch on? You have these cheap imitations of Frank Gehry and Michael Sutton - architects I admire - that are bloody travesties and complete eyesores.’

(Left: A shady path meanders past the vegetable garden and compost heap down to Beezy’s studio.)

For R200 000, artist, draughtsman and builder put together a space that suits Beezy’s needs perfectly, after sacrificing the original vegetable garden (‘Less tomatoes, more art,’ he declares.) The shady trees, cool floor and higher-than-usual ceiling keep it fairly temperate in the soaring heat, although he does admit to having underfloor heating for the Western Cape’s notoriously soggy winters. The plastic roofing filters soft natural light, ideal for painting.

In the same way that scientists build slick laboratories or chefs design functional kitchens, Beezy has built an ‘office’ for creativity. He doesn’t harbour any mystery about the places where great art is created and remembers how, when he was studying in London, blasé students returning to the studio after lunch would mutter: ‘Oh, well, time to get back to the knacker’s yard.’
The studio isn’t cluttered with any conscious ‘decoration.’ Beezy, of course, has an opinion on that too: ‘I have a problem with interior designers. South Africans tend to spend money on curtains, not art. Through sheer ignorance, what they don’t realise is that curtains won’t quadruple in value in 20 years’ time.’

But back to life in the shadow of the mountain. Beezy actually grew up on a farm in the then-Transvaal and says the energy of Joburg spurred him on when he was younger. ‘It took me 10 years of partying in Cape Town before I got into a work routine. It’s called laid-back Cape Town for a reason, although half of Joburg is moving down here, which is changing the work ethic.’
Although he’s managed to counteract the soporific effects of Slaapstad, the one thing he will admit to missing about Gauteng is the summer thunder storms. ‘There’s that moment in the air, just before it rains. And when the rain hits the hot red dust… the smell…’ His voice trails off. Then picks up brightly again: ‘And those mad hail storms out of nowhere, when people would run out to try and save their cars from hail stones the size of golf balls!’

(Left: Standing in front of Gugulethu Church, Beezy works on Joyce’s Ntobe’s portrait series. ‘It’s amazing how much like a landscape a face is’, he comments.)

Beezy’s sense of smell is almost as acute as his sense of colour and line. The path to his studio is lined with lavender, star jasmine and rose bushes – ‘all my favourite smells’ – so that they’re there to inspire him on his way to work. (The rest of us get petrol fumes from the taxis). And the veggie garden is back: the tree tomatoes may still be green but the regal and vaguely militaristic-looking artichoke is in full bloom. The pomegranate has been less successful but the figs are doing very nicely, notes Beezy the gardener.

The work ethic is paying off. After a set-to with the Cape Town art world a few years ago (phrases like ‘politically-correct bullshit’ and ‘art’s obsession with race and feminism’ pretty much sum up his disillusion), Beezy is back. For the first time he and Joyce Ntobe – the domestic worker from the Transkei he created to explore a trans-racial, trans-sexual tangent to his usual work, right down to creating her signature in mission-school cursive – will be having a joint exhibition of their very different work. Beezy’s is littered with fallen angels and scenes from the Resurrection; Joyce’s with shackland churches and portraits of her friends.

And the physical process behind the staggering new collection? Why no easels? The reason is prosaically banal. ‘My back was unbelievably painful. For years I had worked on the ground and my physio reckoned I should be standing up with the tables at elbow height, which alleviated the pain and hasn’t changed my style at all.’ He keeps one square tabletop for Beezy’s work, and another for Joyce’s, but here and there are fragments of his former incarnations, like the cherry sucker-red Vivienne Westwood platforms he wore for Chinese character Lee-Ping Zing.
And let’s not forget the music, a crucial part of Beezy’s work (the rest of us get shrieking phones and our colleagues’ grating ringtones). ‘Oh, I’m a 70s boy,’ he admits. ‘I listen to the Commodores, Santana, the Beatles. For me “modern” is some of the Dave Matthews Band. But sometimes I’ll be listening to David Bowie and then remember it’s time for the news on the radio. I love the radio. I assimilate the news into my work. And I think Tim Modise should be the president of South Africa.’ And Joyce? ‘She likes Jimmy Dludlu, not kwaito!’