Lebogang Moabi, a 34-year-old visual artist from Jouberton outside Klerksdorp in the North West Province, is the leading figure behind the ‘Painting Matlosana Gold’ campaign. This on-going initiative sees young artists beautifying Jouberton township by painting colourful murals all over the streets.
Moabi's love for art started in 2014, although he only started doing art professionally in 2016.Moabi, who is a self-taught artist, said he uses his talent to spread the message of hope through art as a medium, as some of his artworks are scattered around the Jouberton townships, where 70 percent of the residents are unemployed.
The township has recently been in the news for bad publicity that involves violence, gang-related fights, conflicts around tenders and other social ills. Moabi said the idea of painting around the township came after the world was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. He later this turned into gender-based violence and other status-related issues.
He also received a call from the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) to join them in painting their mural in Johannesburg, which motivated him to start the Painting Matlosana Gold Project in 2021. He said the SANAC project was his first big project and Painting Matlosana Gold came to raise awareness of the socio-economic challenges they face in the township.
"The project was named Painting Matlosana Red, but later on I changed the name to Painting Matlosana Gold because Klerksdorp is among the cities that discovered gold back in the day. I wanted my project to reflect on what is happening in my city. Again, gold is a colour of hope. When you see the sunset or sunrise, it’s golden, and it reminds you that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he stated.
Moabi said he is trying to communicate a message of hope to those who lack it and have given up on life to artists or anyone who knows that they can be able to paint or have something they want to communicate. "Painting Matlosana Gold is a project meant to give such people the confidence to believe that everything is possible. I'm doing this to demonstrate to people the power of the arts and how it can transform people's lives, " he said.
Moabi hopes that as his idea expands, more people will join in and help the initiative become even more successful, adding that art is not just for pleasure but it can also be a viable source of income. He said he started funding the project from his own pocket and later on managed to get sponsorship from the North West Department of Arts, Culture, Sports, and Recreation, the North West University Gallery, and B Gallery.
Since the establishment of the project, his most recent project was with Blue Ribbon, where he was commissioned to tell a story while capturing the beauty of Jouberton. His goal is to train people on how to beautify sad spaces like old municipal buildings and bridges around Matlosana to show people the positivity of art and how it can change the world.
This he does, not only through its beauty, but also through messages of substance abuse or gender-based violence, as it was declared the second pandemic in the country.
