Biography.

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Born Johannesburg – 1971

Studied fine art at Rhodes University: 1990-1997, majoring in painting and art history.

 

I live in the beautiful town of Chintsa in the rural Eastern Cape and am a mum to a teenage daughter.
I am self-employed and am in partnership with my sibling in a hospitality business in Chintsa.
The two years of covid shutdowns and business closure gave me time back in my studio, to refocus on doing what I most love.

I am also an accomplished printmaker and consider my main artistic strength to lie in my drawing and observation skills, my ability to work with colour, and my love of words, satire and humour, all of which play to my strong compositions, topical and pertinent content, and  expressive mark-making process in all my work. Over the past year, I have produced a body of eclectic oil paintings and pen, ink and pastel drawings that were successful in 4 recent group exhibitions: the CVD and Ann Bryant galleries in last in East London, and one group show and a solo in Cape Town, both at Galleryone11

More recently, I had a work selected for the Sasol New Signatures competition this year, and I currently have three pieces in a group exhibition at the Johann van Heerden gallery in Pretoria and paintings on the Graham Contemporary Spring show in Hyde  Park.

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I created this collection of work during a period of global uncertainty and change. As the artist, the meaning was created within the moment's creativity and represents a flow of global, local and personal consciousness. The impressions made over these moments shift over time, allowing myself and the viewer to develop a playful dialogue with the images.
The paintings and drawings begin with fast and loose marks that lead to the opening of a dance of sorts that begins to forge their unintentional path. Gradually, as we become familiar with each other, the narrative begins. Without knowing which next steps we take, we start to make sense of the possibilities of direction as an improvised theme develops and matures. The stories that emerge weave subtle commentaries that may mean something different to each person who observes them. Although the content and subject matter for my paintings and drawings are not always exceptionally light, the paintings are bright and colorful., while the ink work, commentating on sometimes social,  political or environmental views, are not bound too tightly to a set theme, rather, allow the viewer to work a personal story, offering some intrigue to the collection.

The new collection of 2022 paintings, with reference to Hogarth’s Rakes Progress, gave me the starting points  as I found social commentary very evocative of and relevant to our current social ills. Through working with color and line, I have created both whimsical and intriguing works, offering the viewer an array of images to delight in, or fright in.