By Asiphe Mangumta
A 29 year old artist has turned the recycling initiative to a whole new level, he’s building his career in art and
reading books. Wonder Shezi started art at the age of 11, while doing grade 3/4. His inspiration grew from
watching super hero, manga series, dragon balls, Naruto etc.He then started attempting to recreate the characters
without looking at them. Wonder recycle materials like boards and used book for resell and borrow to his
customers. For him he is trying to bring back the culture of reading through recycled affordable material. The
young mind operate his business in Webber Street in germiston, he have customers all around surrounding
areas.
For him the struggle has been real,but he never gave in as being in art has limited opportunities. According to
him he studied Art at Boston College between 2011 and 2012, he did introduction to animation but had to drop
out due to financial problems. His dream did not end there, he continued to do art and sell it in different cities
with different prices depending of the style, market of the city e.g. Lambton. He later decided to introduce his
love and hobby for books reading to his business. He uses old book that people threw away, but he bring them
to life and back to his table to preserve the culture of reading. His other reason for using recycled material other
than being an earth friendly artist ,is the joy of seeing something new again were other people saw trash and also
the obvious fact that he doesn’t have to pay for the material.
Wonder is from a family of four siblings and he is the third one, his parents at first thought art is just a hobby for
their boy, but he educated them the professional side of it and now they are proud and cheering him in the side-
line of wonderful work. Things for Wonder are starting to look up for his art work; he was recently invited to
join in a project by the city of Ekurhuleni in redecorating,creating painting and sculptures in the newly renamed
theatre Dumisane Masilela theatre which was known as “Germiston theatre” as one of the artist who are going
to redecorate it inside and out and do the art work. One of his customers told him to apply for municipality
project after seeing his wonderful job. “People saw my work and love it, now I’m working on showcasing my
talent and making a living for myself in hope that one day it will turn into something big that I can be proud of”,
said wonder. He applied and got a call back that they would love to see his art work in an induction session were
he had to showcase his talent infront of people which they loved it and he is now taking part in the project. In
the project they are given a space to create their work of art with the inspiration of everything that happens in
the theatre every day and their imagination to make something good.
Wonder is making a living through selling his art work, books selling, book renting and book donation from
customers to resell and sculptures hand to hand. He shared that he used to work as a security guard and has all
the papers for the job, but decided to leave his work to pursue an entrepreneurial dream of making it big for
himself. “I don’t like being in the job market or being a statistic for unemployment, I like to do things myself”,
said wonder. The types of books wonder sells vary from love novels, inspirational books, spiritual books,
animation books and poetry books and also included literature and school books, he called his book collection
the “versatility” in his own world.
The young mind plans his future: he wishes to open his own art studio one day,which will be divided into two
the first section will consist of animation art and the other part will be a studio for music and a book shop.
Wonder is also a singer, he sings and would like produce music in his own studio. The multi-talent wish to be
able to pass on his knowledge and experience of the art or business nature to others. He want to teach them the
tricks of the trade, then he will say, his dream came true.
