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The colourful lounge is the undisputed heart of the home : It is adorned with a miscellany of art and antiques and featuring its own version of Giotto’s night sky. -
Kitty Boy Blue stakes out a comfy seat in the home’s dining room : The room is characterised by its dusky walls and silver-leaf on the blue doors and ceiling. -
Known for his eccentric dress sense, Beezy strikes a pose -
A bedroom is painted in a dramatic Prussian blue -
There’s no shortage of art in Beezy’s home : Many works are by contemporaries and friends, while others, like these head sculptures, are by Beezy himself. -
Beezy embedded his own bathroom’s ceiling with perlemoen shells : It is inspired by a mother-of-pearl-adorned domed ceiling in the Uffizi Gallery.
PHOTOS Micky Hoyle PRODUCTION Sumien Brink WORDS Katharine Jacobs
A new documentary about Cape Town artist Beezy Bailey is premiering this week, so we decided to visit him in his Higgovale home, a creative canvas that never shies away from bold colour combinations.
“I remember the first time I came to this house I had to wear a jacket and be on my best behaviour,” says eccentric fine artist Beezy Bailey of his house, Villa Toscana, which originally belonged to an elderly aunt. “When we first moved in, my wife and I were like the paupers in the palace. Some friends rented rooms here and we had some historically wild parties.”
Set high up in Higgovale, looking down over the lights of Cape Town’s City Bowl, the house was built in the 1950s in the style of a grand old Italian villa. High ceilings, large sash windows and stately marble fireplaces make for an imposing first impression. Today, Beezy shares the house with his wife Nicci and two teenage children. The decor could not be more different.
As an artist, Bailey is known for his boldness; whether as a painter, a maker of monumental sculpture, or creating work in his own Art Factory. He’s also made a foray into sound, working in collaboration with British electronic musician Brian Eno to create paintings with soundtracks, expressing what the visuals and colours would sound like.
At home, Beezy is similarly unafraid to make a noise. “People are terrified of colours,” says the artist. “If it doesn’t work, you can just paint over it.” In Villa Toscana, this ethos finds its expression in a dramatic palette of bold, contrasting colours. “We’ve got this incredible choice of colours and people should spend more time matching them together,” adds Beezy.
Deepend Films will premier the Beezy Bailey documentary, Outsider, on Wednesday 14 May in Cape Town at The Labia and on Monday 19 May in Johannesburg at the Killarney Mall cinema. For more details, please visit: deependfilms.co.za/film/outsider
Originally published in Plascon Spaces.
