David Bowie once said of this artist – “Everyone should own a Beezy Bailey”.
One of South Africa’s most colourful and celebrated artists, Beezy Bailey is an artist set alight by the need to find expression for his creativity. Painter, sculptor, printmaker, performance artist, surrealist, collaborator, iconoclast – Bailey’s artistic practice defies easy categorization.
Many of the ideas and imagery for Bailey’s work emerge from dreams, the subconscious and a tireless imagination. Bailey’s father was a RAF pilot and his grandmother an outstanding female aviator who flew a pioneering solo flight from London to Cape Town and back in 1928.
This gives some context to the many references to rising, falling and floating in Bailey’s art. Flight in all its different meanings clearly entered his imagination at an early stage, and never left his dreams
Bailey’s fallen angel appears to be falling, floating and flying all at once - its head rooted to the earth, its reflection simultaneously floating in the clouds ….
Beezy Bailey’s Peaceman (medium) cast in bronze with an indigo patina. One of South Africa’s leading artists, Bailey’s eclectic and effervescent approach to art has attracted a stellar list of collaborators, including David Bowie, Brian Eno and Dave Matthews. His is a storybook career that included early encounters with Andy Warhol, which was to inspire Bailey’s own Cape Town version of The Factory. Bailey aspires to create art as a balm for a mad world – a corrective for our most lamentable human qualities – and in this spirit his serene Peaceman, eyes closed and palm open, offers a symbol of peace to the world.
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Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.