Ben Macala was born in Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free State, on 21 April 1938. He spent his early years tending cattle on a farm, and did his first drawings on rock formations using stones. Later his family moved to Gauteng.

Macala’s career as an artist began in 1965. Although he was self-taught he had trained under Cecil Skotnes at the Jubilee Art Centre in 1964, and in 1965 worked with and received guidance from Ephraim Ngatane. 1966 saw him studying under Bill Ainslie for a short period. In 1908 he travelled to Greece and held 13 exhibitions in Europe and the United States of America from 1967 to 1985. He was also one of the few Black South African artists whose work was seen locally, even during Apartheid.

Initially Macala worked as a sculptor, but later focussed on mixed-media pictorial work. Most of his works are pastel studies of people with the aim to show the dignity and tranquillity of his subjects and the importance of the animal world. His most seen images are female heads and mother-and-child studies that have a Madonna-like element. He never stopped sculpting and specialised in a specific field of terracotta work modelled on life, which he observed in the township streets of Johannesburg.

Macala worked mostly in mixed media and crayons and his drawings became more stylized, some faces being presented in groups. Closer to his death in 1997 his work became more decorative and polished.
Exhibitions:
Macala was included in the African Painters and Sculptors from Johannesburg Exhibition at the Piccadilly Gallery in London in 1965.
1967 - Fist solo-exhibition in Johannesburg
1968 - Artists of Fame and Promise Exhibition
1981 - Black Art Today Exhibition
1987 - African Images Exhibition
1988 - Neglected Tradition Exhibition, Johannesburg Art Gallery
He has participated in several South African group exhibitions and abroad in Australia, Europe and the U.S.A.
Represented in many private collections in South Africa as well as the following:
South African National Gallery, Cape Town
King George IV Gallery, Port Elizabeth
University of Fort Hare
University of the Witwatersrand
University of South Africa as well as other University collections