True blue: Nico Phooko transforms old denim garments into works of art with his signature technique using paint and bleach. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Someone should do research into where South African artists live. In the absence of that, it is guesswork but one can be sure Boksburg, the unhip, dour Gauteng East Rand town, wouldn’t make it into the top three places.
But resident Nico Phooko more than makes up for that. When I get to the house, he quickly makes an unremarkable day into something bright and colourful.
Just to get onto his property first – as the polyglot painter starts talking to me through a burglar gate which he is struggling to open.
“My dear, you will have to come in through the garage,” he says.
I walk around his beautiful garden and onto the pavement leading up to the garage door.
It opens to reveal several wrapped-up artworks on the floor.
“It’s a big day for me today,” he says with a warm, welcoming smile.
“I am visited by the Mail & Guardian and I am waiting for the courier company to come fetch these paintings. They are going to an exhibition.”
Also in the garage are some brightly painted denim pieces and tie-dyed dresses carefully hung on the walls — they look like American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock decided to paint his Levi’s. It was seeing these wearable works of art on social media that brings me here.
However, I soon discover that Phooko’s story is much larger than a simple denim revival — it’s about a man who has transformed the way his art interacts with music, culture and life itself.
In fact, Phooko is best known as “the music painter”, a title given to him by the legendary Hugh Masekela. It comes from him painting live on stage, driven purely by the rhythm and spirit of the music.
We are sitting in a living room that feels more like an African art museum than a private residence.
Paintings adorn the walls, each with its own story.
“I came here to see some jeans,” I begin. “I hear you’ve brought them to life.”
“This all happened by accident,” the 54-year-old says with a smile, leaning back, recalling an old memory.
“I was living alone in Yeoville, just after I finished my studies, in a big house with four bedrooms.
“One day, I was bleaching my dishcloths and accidentally stained my black T-shirt. I loved what it looked like. That’s how it all started.”
This serendipitous discovery led Phooko to develop a unique method of bleaching fabric to create wearable art.
Over the years, he has sold thousands of these bleached pieces, with some even ending up being worn by the likes of Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel, to whom he gave some of his garments.
In addition to painting with bleach, Phooko often uses a technique inspired by his Pedi grandmother from Mpumalanga. She would mix cow dung, clay and grass to lay floors by hand, working from left to right, in sweeping motions that mirrored a painter’s strokes.
“I knew then that I wanted to work with my hands,” he says.
Seeing his grandmother make something out of nothing inspired him do the same in his art.
He takes whatever tools resonate with his painting and places them on canvas. Same with the denim jeans that you and I might throw away —Phooko sees them as gold and salvages them into works of art.
But the denim and music are closely linked. His expressive live painting on stage — while some of Africa’s great musicians, including Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Sibongile Khumalo, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Joe Nina performed — is directly related to his art on denim.
“Being on stage, painting live, I would often wipe my hands on my clothes and that inspired me,” he explains to me.
“I started to realise that what I wore while painting was just as much a canvas as the surfaces I worked on.
“I remember being backstage with bra Hugh, mam Miriam and Yvonne,” he reminisces. “They were all teasing me, asking why I smelled like bleach. I told them I was using it for my painting on stage.”
Phooko says he is not just an artist but also “a musician trapped inside a painter’s body”. For him, the stage is a place of fusion where music and visual art collide.
Although Phooko’s journey with bleach art began by accident, it has become a hallmark of his style. His “art wear” is now highly sought after, with pieces being sold at exhibitions and performances around the world.
We are looking at a denim jacket of the kind that has become a typical Phooko canvas. It has seen better days, but he has added so much character to it, especially with the splatter of paint.
Along with the paint, the jacket also has shapes and symbols — elevating it to a work of art.
A day spent with Phooko flies past like the concerts of some of the greats he has performed with — he turns it into something remarkable with his stories and infectious spirit.
Before I leave, he explains how to get hold of his wearable art.
Simple, you just bring him the jeans you’d like him to work on. All you need to do is take a trip to Boksburg.
Alternatively, Phooko says, he always has a few pieces for sale on him when he travels and has live performances.
And as I drive away from his studio, it is clear — he isn’t just a painter, he’s a storyteller, a mentor, and, most of all, an artist whose legacy continues to grow with every live stroke of the brush.