Protestor

A carved wooden work titled, Protestor (2020) by the South African artist Michael Madimetja Teffo (b.1957). In a year where protesting were seen across the world due to the Black Lives Matter Movement, Covid-19 restrictions and food shortages, Teffo encapsulated this spirit in this small sculpture. Short biography: Michael Madimetja Teffo was born in 1957 in the Pretoria township of Lady Selborne. He went to school in Hammanskraal, but abandoned school early to focus on his artwork. Teffo has received no formal institutional art training, but he was interested in art from a young age, sculpting in Marula wood with a pen knife as a child. His first solo exhibition was held at the South African Association of Arts in May 1978. From 1977, Teffo participated in group and solo exhibitions in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Potchefstroom in South Africa and in 1980, he exhibited pen and ink drawings at the Nassau County Black History Museum in New York. Teffo has served on several judging art panels for the Pretoria’s State Theatre Art Gallery and for the Sasol New Signatures competition in Pretoria. He has held several major exhibitions including at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein and Pretoria’s Brooklyn Theatre in Menlo Park.