Lynette Louw

Walking into Wixie Wikberg’s house is like entering an art gallery. Wherever you look or turn to you find paintings of historical places, fauna and flora, animals and people.

Wixie was born in Viljoenskroon in 1943. Her parents got divorced when she was only three-years old and she travelled with her mother to Zambia where her mom later remarried a copper miner. They settled in Kitwe and her stepsister Gretha arrived a few years later. Her stepdad died when she was only 11 and her mom raised the two girls by herself.

Wixie received her schooling from British teachers and started to paint from a very young age. Even as a young girl she painted murals for various shop owners in Kitwe. Her mom was a teacher and a singer and encouraged Wixie to also qualify as a teacher. “She always said I need to be my own woman and earn my own money and teaching seemed the obvious choice,” Wixie said.

After school she started to study teaching in Southern Rhodesia, but as the situation in Zambia deteriorated, her mom decided to move back to South Africa and Wixie finished her training at Johannesburg College of Education. “I hated Joburg,” she said and could not wait to finish her studies.

She married her childhood sweetheart Phil in 1965 and they moved back to Zambia where he was working in the mines. They had two daughters, Heidie and Belinda and both inherited mom’s passion for art.

The situation in Zambia did not improve and in 1985 they moved to South Africa without knowing what lies ahead. They stayed with her mom in Pinetown for a while before Phil got a job at the Havelock Mine in Swaziland. Wixie was involved in the teaching of her own daughters until they went to Barberton High School. She then started to teach full time again at a local school.

When the mine closed down in 1999 they moved to Barberton. Wixie was determined to retire and put all her energy into her painting but it did not work out this way. She was asked to help get Barberton Academy of the ground and for three years dedicated her life to the school and the children.

Through all the years Wixie kept painting and taught others. In 2000 she started to give art classes to adults and for the last four years she has been involved in teaching drawing and art design at the Umjindi Jewellery Project. “This I find very rewarding as the students are focused on what they want and hungry for knowledge”.

Her preferred medium is water colour but she also works in pastel and oil. She has launched her own postcards on the historical buildings of Barberton and is presently working on a second series.

She has painted buildings on commission and some of her work has been bought by the Department of Art, Sport and Recreation in Mpumalanga and hangs in the government building in Nelspruit.

She also held various exhibitions in Swaziland and Mpumalanga and helped local artists to exhibit their work here in town. “We have so much latent in Barberton that nobody knows about and these people need to be exposed. We desperately need a permanent art gallery,” she said adding that people should not go to exhibitions only to purchase a painting but the artists wants you to look at their work critically and give an honest opinion.

Wixie Wikberg at one of her favourite paintings

Wixie WIkberg at a mural in one of the rooms at her house

A painting of one of her daughters

Every wall at the house is covered with paintings