Welcome to my fine art website.

The Early Photographic Years.

My formal introduction to art started in 1979 when I enrolled at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town.

South Africa was undergoing a painful change, struggling to escape from the shackles of apartheid which were threatening to destroy its infant democracy.

As the country battled to come to terms with this, I found myself, as a young photographer, overwhelmed with conflicting images of natural beauty, human suffering, violence, hope and despair. Despite all the chaos which seemed to surround me, I was able, over the years, to create a portfolio of fine art photographs which did finally reflect a nations dream to be free.

Sculpture.

There was a natural tendency to gravitate towards creating metal sculptures, born from my earlier engineering experiences and relationship with my family roots in the South African gold mining industry on the Witwatersrand.

My welding skills developed initially from creating simple functional art forms using soft, mild steel into the more complex stainless sculptures with the Tungsten Inert Gas or TIG process.

A considerable amount of time and energy is expended in creating one of these sculptures as the material is extremely hard and unyielding. The recent concept of having the originals cast into a limited edition of bronzes has produced an entirely new range. The raw energy of the welding process creates abstract textures in the metal which is further enriched in the bronze castings with the addition of subtle colour tones in the final patina.

My inspiration and ideas are drawn directly from frequent excursions into the Southern African bushveld and other remote wilderness areas. This provides an opportunity to reflect, observe and record.

Although my sculptures are a personal interpretation and to a certain extent represent objects of beauty, I hope the underlying metaphor will illuminate the desperate need to conserve and protect our natural heritage areas from further extermination.

I have included some of my earlier black and white photographic work with a social documentary theme.

The Road Ahead.

Inspired by the work of the American Painter, Andrew Wyeth, I am currently painting in egg tempera and drybrush watercolour.

The current exhibition features  9 of my most recent paintings executed in egg tempera.
 Egg tempera is a permanent, fast-drying medium consisting of coloured pigments, which I grind and mix with the binder, egg yolk. Tempera paintings are extremely long-lasting and examples from the first century AD still exist. It was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by oil painting.
It is more durable and transparent than oil as it holds less pigment, but with a luminosity similar to watercolour, this allows light to penetrate and reflect off the white surface of the gesso below.  Tempera, unlike oil, is resistant to light and the colours do not darken or change with age.
It is very time consuming as each successive layer must be built up gradually, using small strokes and cross-hatching.  This makes it best suited to fine, detailed work, which I thoroughly enjoy. 


Exhibitions:

1983: Michaelis staff and senior students exhibition

Grahamstown Arts Festival, Staffrider Exhibition Johannesburg

1984: Second Carnegie Enquiry into poverty and development in South Africa. The exhibition subsequently travelled to London, Germany, Holland and U.S.A.

1989: Oppenheimer Institute University of Cape Town

1990: Edrich's Gallery Stellenbosch Western Cape

2000: Tulbach Arts Festival

2000- Present:

Fillingdon Fine Art, (formerly Art of Africa), High Wycombe, England

Scottish Seabird Centre North Berwick, Scotland

Gullane Art Gallery, Gullane, Scotland

WestGate Galleries, North Berwick, Scotland

Hanger Framing, Fenton Barnes, Scotland

Coast Gallery, Dunbar, (Future Exhibition Dates 28/01/2022- 26/04/2022), Scotland

Publications

South Africa, The Cordoned Heart - Gallery Press, Johannesburg

South Africa Dried Flowers - Human and Rossouw

Machine Appliqué- Human and Rossouw

Staffrider Magazine - Raven Press

Wynboer Magazine - K.W.V.

Leadership South Africa - The Argus Group

Cape Style Magazine - (Argus Group)

Seardel Annual Report - Seardel Group

LTA Annual Report, LTA Ltd

Rise and Fall of Apartheid - International Centre of Photography and DelMonico Books Prestel

Thank you for visiting my online art gallery, please sign the guest book and leave a comment or contact me for further assistance.