Nanette studied Fine Art at the University of the Free State.  While at university, her work was chosen for the Rolfes Impressions Traveling Exhibition.

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After she completed her studies she was mentored by her friend Connie van Wyk in mould making and metal casting. 

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Nanette is currently a Ceramic Artist and Art Teacher working from the Nanette Ranger Private Art School in Paarl which opened in 2001, and experiments in various materials and techniques eg, sandstone and marble sculpting.  She has recently expanded her work and skills to include etching.

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She is a well-established sculptor and it is her main form of expression. She has been exhibiting since 1987. Her main influences are sculptors Dylan Lewis, Henry Moore, Dylan Lewis, Angus Taylor, Jacques Fuller, Jacques Dhont, Severino Bracchialarghe & David Steele.

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Nanette's work is primarily figurative, drawing on the connection and disconnection between people and the dichotomous relationship between humanity and the natural world.

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Artists Statement: It seems to me that humanity is labouring under the illusion that it is separate from, independent of and elevated above nature. In my work I explore the ideological roots of our current separation from nature, the void that this separation has wrought on our consciousness and the need for a new paradigm of re-integration at both a physical and psychological level. A rapidly increasing dependence on technology is severing people’s connection with the natural world. Dependence on (one could even go as far as saying addiction to) various technologies encourages layers of separation that stifle our basic human nature and remove us physically from our environment. We are vanishing into a world of our own creation and discovering that it is a half-world.Through everyday actions such as putting on shoes in the morning, switching on the light, travelling in a closed car, essentially manipulating our time, bodily functions and environment, we layer ourselves in technological comforts that separate us from our environment. We start believing that we can function and flourish independently of our world.However, unwittingly we pay the price: the more we immerse ourselves in this self-created, virtual world, the further we remove ourselves from the life-giving creativity and intuition of the natural state. My sense is that technological separation has resulted in a psychological separation that makes us feel half-alive.My work is an attempt to seek re-integration for myself and others and to reflect on the metaphysical power that close communion with the natural world offers humanity.  I do not seek to deify nature, but rather to investigate the possibility of a new paradigm of re-integration at both a physical and psychological level.