Leon Botha

Biography

Leon Botha opened his second solo exhibition in March 2009 and called it “Liquid Swords; Slices of Lemon”. He was asked whether the title alluded to the saying that when life hands you lemons, you should make lemonade. No, he replied: he slices the lemons and serves them back. The exhibition was about his own life.

He was born on 4 June 1985 in Cape Town and lived there all his life. At about the age of four he was diagnosed with progeria, and the condition shaped much of his later life. He had no formal art training beyond school: for two years he studied painting and jewellery design (according to other sources, he attended courses at the Tygerberg Art Centre). After school he became a professional artist and worked on commission.

His first solo exhibition opened in January 2007 at the Rust-en-Vrede gallery in Durbanville. Its theme was hip hop as a way of life, and it was opened by Mr Fat of the South African hip hop group Brasse Vannie Kaap.

In January 2010 the João Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town showed “Who Am I? Transgressions”, a photographic work made together with Gordon Clark. Explaining it, Botha said that he was first of all a spiritual being, just like any of the viewers, then a human being, and that only one part of the human being is the body, which has a condition. I think no better commentary on these photographs could be devised.

He also worked as a DJ and in turntablism, a branch of DJing, under the name Solarize. He worked closely with the South African group Die Antwoord: in their video for “Enter the Ninja” he appeared alongside Watkin Tudor Jones, who performs as Ninja.

Leon Botha died in Cape Town on 5 June 2011, the day after his twenty-sixth birthday.

In April 2014 Teatr Wielki, the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, gave the premiere of a one-act opera by Marcin Stańczyk to a libretto by Andrzej Szpindler. The opera was inspired by Botha’s life and was called “Solarize”, after his DJ name.