Greatjoy Ndlovu is a full-time visual artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born in the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and moved to study Art at Cyrene Mission in the south-western part of the country. The fervent painter continues to enjoy the summits of art world prominence in South Africa, and an immense recognition of his world class talent across continents.
The Contemporary Expressionist boasts an ever-growing number of faithful collectors worldwide. His current body of works largely focuses on the portrayal of masculinity, identity and the abstract representation of the nature of thought conceptions, particularly in light of mindset generation as expressed in his 2019 series “Conversations of a Man”.
His principal theme revolves around merging motion and emotion to arouse mental images that synchronize with his expressive style of art. Greatjoy’s style notably kisses expressionistic and representationalistic ideas with figurative drawings, while retaining an enthralling tinge of abstraction that frequently lurks in his works. His mind-piercing forms of portraiture seek to decipher internal truths and meanings with such lightness of detail, instead of mere expressions of shallow unstoried works approximating goodly but superficial semblances. His artworks attest to his exploratory genius with diverse material as
evidenced by his distinctive, equally riveting techniques across much of his paintings. Such creative candor has made him one of the most sought-after African artists fitly posed for world acclaim in the art scene of his generation.
Greatjoy’s work starts from light-hearted, experimental sketches that develop into large scale detailed works or even an entire series without losing an experimental element that so characterizes his work. His work is strongly influenced by challenges incurred by men in society. It aims to table talk and to inspire men and the greater society to raise and tackle these challenges with an elevated degree of seriousness, and it also presses more on the need to help socialize and educate our young boys differently.
