While other artists may use watercolor or oil paints, Bongeni Buthelezi uses waste plastic to create highly textured paintings in his studio in Boyens, Johannesburg.
His medium is the plastic waste he collects from local garbage dumps and city streets. “Animals are dying, fish are dying in the ocean — because of this material and because of us as humans,” said Buthelezzi. “It is us who need to take responsibility.”
An artist and activist, 56-year-old Buthelezi first found his talent for the creative as a boy in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He made clay sculptures of animals around his village: cows, horses and goats.
“I grew up with my father’s animals, cattle were an important part of my life,” Buthelezzi said. But not everything was natural in this rural setting.
He explained that plastic waste was so common in grazing areas that it became an unwanted part of the cows’ regular diet. “We will see these cows die because they ate plastic,” said Buthelezzi.
With plastic waste on the rise around the world, Buthelezzi is using his work to highlight and tackle the issue.
Buthelezi uses plastic litter to create artworks depicting life in South Africa. Credit: bongnei buthelezik
practical plastic
Butlezzi’s waste was not always used to protect the environment; They first began using plastic litter for their art because they could not afford a more traditional medium.
At age 22, when the country was still under apartheid, he enrolled in full-time classes at a community art school in Soweto, a township in Johannesburg. He took only two blankets with him, very little money and a lot of optimism. There he lived in a small room and did odd jobs between classes to pay for rent and food. He had no money for the material.
“It was the 80s, and South Africa was facing this transitional period, where politics was very volatile,” Buthelezzi said.
He said the political climate did not give young Black South Africans much of an opportunity to try to make a career, especially for those in townships. The main problem was lack of funds.
Buthelezzi explained that there was no formal schooling in the township, and community-based institutions such as his college received no support from the state.
“The school introduced us to things like collages—using old magazines to create artwork if you don’t have the money for paint,” said Buthelezzi. “Without those fancy traditional ways of making art, we expanded our way of looking at art and life.”
“There was a dumping site next to my studio in college,” he recalled. “I saw all these great colors, these materials… and I said to myself, what can I do to make sense of these plastics that are everywhere?”
They began collecting plastic litter to “paint” them in lieu of expensive oil paints. He developed a technique of using an electric heat gun that produces hot air to melt the plastic and then applied it to a recycled canvas. According to Buthelezzi, it is more eco-friendly than using flames to melt the plastic and does not release harmful fumes into the atmosphere.
One of Buthelezzi’s works is called “Street Soccer”. Credit: bongnei buthelezik
After completing his studies at the African Institute of Art and later the Johannesburg Art Foundation, he obtained an Advanced Diploma in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand.
As his career progressed, he reflected on his childhood experiences of plastic and the role plastic pollution played in the death of his father’s many cows. By the ’90s, Buthelezzi was a professional artist, and he was determined to use innovation in art for the good of the planet.
“As an artist I am a mirror of my society”
Buthelezii still works using the same method of melting waste plastics. The works are figurative and mostly trace the experience of growing up in a South African township. Throughout his career he has used his art to educate and start a conversation about global plastic waste. “The world we live in today can offer us everything we need to make art without creating anything,” he said.
Buthelezi has organized exhibitions, participated in festivals, led workshops, and exhibited artists’ residency in countries including Germany, the United States, Barbados, Egypt, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
“As an artist I am a mirror of my society,” says Buthelezzi. “I’m supposed to contemplate what’s happening on the land where I live.” And for that, “on the ground” is plastic.
In March, he spoke at a South African National Science and Technology Forum discussion on plastics innovation and at the end of the year he will attend an arts and environment festival in Abu Dhabi.
Although his efforts have received widespread praise, Buthelezzi says not everyone has been so supportive. “Some people say, ‘You’ll run out of plastic one day and then you won’t be able to do your job,'” he said. “They don’t understand that I’ll be happy if this happens. That’s what I’m fighting for!”