Johannes SEGOGELA (b. 1936)

BIOGRAPHY

Johannes Mashego Segogela was born in 1936 in Sekhukhuneland, in present day Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces, a region named after the 19^th-century Bapedi King, Sekhukhune I.

Segogela trained as a craftsman at the Standard Bank Centre in Johannesburg and became a full time artist in the 1980s, when dissent against white minority rule and the apartheid regime was brutally suppressed. A devout Christian, he used religious imagery to produce veiled critiques of apartheid policies, with depictions of the devil frequently standing in for the government.

His painted wooden sculptures were inspired by the Bible and developed further through his own visions. Deeply concerned with the future of humankind, Segogela’s commitment to the anti-apartheid movement and his membership, from 1954 onwards, in the Church of Five Missions, influenced his work considerably. His goal, ‘to save the world from violence and horror’, started in the late 1980s with the work ‘Satan Fresh Meat Market’, with its figures of angels and demons.

As the end of minority rule drew closer, Segogela was able to create overtly critical works, such as Apartheid’s Funeral, without fear of reprisal.

Each of his installations, in which characters and objects have been precisely composed, detailed and painted, is the result of his sustained and meticulous work as a sculptor. Grappling with all aspects of human life, they reveal his sensitivity, humour, and irony.

SOURCES
‘Johannes Mashego Segogela: Devils, Angels and Other Things,’ Gallery Bon Bon, https://www.gallerybonbon.com/products/johannes-mashego-segogela-devils-angels-and-other-things?srsltid=AfmBOoqvP0vwWiOWDEXMilC7WvNog7YH0k7W4cIQWAGr_viEsteA2RIN.
‘Curator’s Choice: Apartheid’s Funeral,’ Fowler Museum at UCLA, https://fowler.ucla.edu/curators-choice-apartheids-funeral/.