Helen Sebidi

Helen Sebidi was born in Marapyane near Hammanskraal in Northern Transvaal (now Gauteng and Limpopo). Growing up with her grandmother, a traditional wall and floor painter who taught Sebidi the importance of channeling spirit into the world through hard work, commitment to herself, her community and through creativity, whether through cooking, weaving, beading, drawing or painting.

Consequently, from a young child, Sebidi developed a lasting love for creative pursuits, particularly drawing and painting and the designs of traditional arts and craft. As a young adult Sebidi worked as a domestic worker, but soon discovered she had a talent for painting. Her employer had taken up painting, and after Sebidi expressed an interest in it, she received her first set of oil paints. She then sought out formal lessons and ended up being taught and mentored by John Keonakeefe Mohl in the early 1970s. Sebidi returned to Marapyane in 1975 to look after her grandmother who later passed in 1981. It was around this time she trained at the Katlehong Arts Centre to improve her clay, moulding and sculpture techniques. Mmakgabo Mapula Helen Sebidi resides in Parktown, Johannesburg, where she works in her studio and, in her spare time, continues to teach and inspire. Sebidi’s practice is dedicated to mythologies, ancestry and traditional value systems