“I think that I had dreams of wanting to be… anything! I wanted to represent something in my life. I didn’t want so many things, but I wanted to be able to say, this is what I did, this is mine.”

Wonder’s life and work are inseparable. From growing up in the townships outside Cape Town to living for years alone on Table Mountain, and later exhibiting across Europe and South Africa, his journey has shaped the depth and structure of his painting.

Painting is his primary language. He works intuitively, often building new images over older surfaces. “I don’t give up on an image,” he says. “I start something else on top of it.” Each canvas becomes a layered accumulation — trusting that the work itself will have “a bit of a say in it.”

He works in series that reflect shifts in his life: The Fields of Play during his years on the mountain, Windows at Greatmore Studios, and Inside Out during his time in Germany. His paintings carry this sense of lived time — grounded and quietly assertive.