Painting a living with lipstick, coffee and curry - TimesLIVE

A self-taught KwaZulu-Natal artist has relied on lipstick, coffee, chocolate and even curry to create signature portraits to help him and his family make a living.

Ricollin Moodley, 25, who lived with his parents Ahmed and Evelyn in Port Edward on the province’s South Coast, began drawing in 2017 to support the family when they realised his father’s income from working at a retail store 200km away barely covered the rent.

But when a medical emergency left his mother facing an amputation and a prolonged hospital stay earlier this year, the artist turned to crowdfunding platform BackaBuddy when sales slowed. He recently exceeded his R400,000 target to pay for medical care and a new disability-friendly rental home for his family.

“One day in 2017, when we had no food at home, I asked my mum to get me a pencil and paper so I could try drawing at the local beach,” Moodley said. “That same day, I received my first commission from a German man who saw my work and asked me to sketch his grandchild, whom he had come to visit in South Africa. When I finished he asked my price, and I asked him if he could pay us in bread and juice for my family.

“He came back a little while later with groceries, some cash and a cellphone, telling me that I should never underestimate the value of my art. That moment changed my life. I realised art could help keep my family afloat, and since then I haven’t doubted myself.”

From then on, Moodley — the eldest of three children — continued creating artwork with whatever material he could find and started selling portraits, landscapes, wildlife scenes and still lifes at school or outside the local mall.

“In 2023 I started experimenting with a discarded box of lipsticks, and I realised they were a really cool medium to paint with and see how best to mix and shade using the colours,” he said.

Thanks to his sister Es-leeyah, who helps with his social media content, he now has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram. A lipstick portrait of Siya Kolisi resulted in the Springbok captain messaging him to buy the artwork in November 2023.

“When Siya contacted me a few days after the social media post I was ecstatic,” Moodley said. “I wasn’t going to do the portrait initially because I knew so many people were doing portraits of him because of the World Cup.

“But then my family convinced me that mine would be unique, and it was! It was the biggest lipstick portrait, using shades of green and yellow lipstick and so many other shades, and Siya was very impressed.”

Moodley said Kolisi was extremely supportive of his art, commissioning a family portrait, and this led to a number of other commissions. The rugby star also invited him and his family to watch a Sharks match in November 2024.

The artist said the colour of coffee inspired him to create a portrait of the musician Black Coffee.

“He has liked my work on social media. After that I thought about creating artwork using material linked to their work or names. I did one using curry gravy for basketball player Steph Curry, another using Feastables chocolate for MrBeast, and for David Beckham using Victoria Beckham lipstick.”

Since his humble pencil-sketch portraits in 2017, Moodley has used his skill to pay for rent, food, school fees and medical bills, including those arising from his mother’s amputation in January.

“His art has fed us and kept us alive,” said Evelyn. “I don’t know what we would have done without his talent.

“One day — he was in grade 9 — he came home from school very upset because a teacher saw him sketching during break and told him to stop his drawing because art wouldn’t pay the bills. But the irony is that’s exactly how we have survived for almost a decade.”

She said the family had suffered a series of setbacks, including her husband losing their home during the Covid pandemic and having to stay at a campsite for a month while Moodley sold enough of his work to pay R11,000 for rent and a deposit on a flat in which they could live.

“The flat had no furniture,” she said. “I had to pay R50 a week for a neighbour to store my insulin because we didn’t have a fridge. Things were tough, but somehow he worked like a machine and we managed.”

Ahmed was laid off recently, and Moodley and his brother Matteo — who works at a franchise clothing store — pay the bills.

“We are lucky that Ricollin has been blessed with partnerships and kind sponsors who have come when we needed it the most,” said Evelyn.

Moodley has worked with cosmetic and luxury accessory brands, a car dealership as well as food companies and a streaming platform.