South African Artists Online

Hannetjie de Clerq’s career started at the age of eighteen when she exhibited for the first time. Her work is unique in the South African art sphere and shows a juxtaposition of emotions, of things ancient and modern, strongly sensual, sometimes light-hearted and often tinged with a sense of sadness. Her fascination for the purity of medieval iconography, interconnected with 20th century technology, social realities and the ambiguity of surrealism is obvious.

The preferred media that she works in is tempera and oil on canvas and her inspiration for the special technique she uses in painting comes from frescoes and icons from the middle ages, especially Giotto’s work. She feels that an over- explanation of her work would render it impotent and therefore does not title her paintings. For her, the beauty of art is in the interaction between the viewers with their subjective personal view and a specific painting, allowing specific meaning to be found in the imagery.

Hannetjie de Clercq has been acknowledged as one of South Africa’s top artists by SASOL, resulting in her work forming part of the impressive SASOL art collection. She shares this honour with iconic South African artists like Walter Battis, Maggie Laubser, J H Pierneef, Alexander Rose-Innes and Irma Stern, amongst others.

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Derric van Rensburg, internationally renowned for his superb impressionist paintings, is widely rated as one of South Africa’s top artists. He is well known for his colourful landscapes, the vineyards of the Western Cape, abstract wildlife and the use of bright acrylic colours in these paintings.

Following humble beginnings, Derric has emerged as one of the true heavyweights of the local and international art scenes. Having always felt a profound connection to the natural environment since early childhood, this versatile and prolific artist draws his inspiration from the abundant beauty found in the African landscape, as well as the rich variety of people, fauna and flora inhabiting it. To the delight of audiences at home and abroad, his broad brush strokes and sometimes abstract visual intensity, coupled with ingenious inpressionist flair, continues to capure the true aesthetic essence of this rugged continent. It all started at the age of ten when he completed his first pencil drawing, and his career later followed the commercial and manufacturing world of the creative arts. He progressed to teaching art before becoming a professional artist in 1986.He has contributed richly to the development of emerging artists in South Africa, not only through teaching art as a profession, but also through numerous workshops and private tutorials across the country.

Derric has exhibited many times in South Africa, Portugal, England, Germany, Italy and Australia, and most of his commissions are placed by multinational corporate clients and a number of South Africa’s finest hotels.

Click here for more info on the new coffee table book celebrating Derric van Rensburg’s art.

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Jan Vermeiren is an artist whose work bridges two rich and vastly different continents. On the one hand there is his European heritage; on the other is the profound influence of Africa, which has become his home when he moved to South Africa in 1976.

Jan was born in Bornem, Belgium in 1949 and studied art full-time at the Academy St Niklaas, the Academy of Mechelen and the National Hoger Institute in Antwerp. After being invited to teach lithography in 1973 in South Africa, he decided to stay on indefinitely.
Jan was profoundly influenced by the extensive range of colours he found in the local land- and cityscapes, compared to the relative blandness of the European spectrum, Belgium in particular.

His work is an expression not of outer reality, but of the subconscious, and it is this instinctive approach that gives his paintings their dreamlike, spiritual quality. He asks the viewer to react on the same subconscious and spontaneous level, both to the form and content of his work. With his paintings he aims to bring the viewer into the spirit of Africa, thereby encouraging a deeper understanding of the African identity.

Jan Vermeiren’s work can be found in the acclaimed South African Sanlam and SASOL collections, as well as the South African museums in Pretoria, Durban and Bloemfontein. Abroad his work can be found on display in Belgian and Yugoslavian museums.

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In 1972 Paddy Starling gave up farming in the robust Eastern Lowveld of Zimbabwe and devoted himself full-time to painting. Today, he is arguably one of South Africa’s most popular and sought after land- and waterscape artists.

As a recent edition of a respected South African art magazine had stated, “ water is the endlessly intriguing focus for his landscapes, particularly the tranquil stretches of river beloved of fly fishermen. Looking at Paddy’s waterscapes you can almost smell the sweet, decaying scent of the river and glimpse the shadow of a trout in the clear brown water." Paddy says he finds the accurate rendition of water fascinating and challenging, not just painting it, but seeing through it, putting the riverbed, the reflections and the flowing movement onto the canvas, all resulting in super-realistic depictions. He personally visits and photographs every scene he intends to paint in order to capture the light, the atmosphere, the surroundings, and the “feel" of the location. This contributes to a Paddy Starling masterpiece every time he puts paint onto canvas.

His works are highly popular with fly fishermen all over the world and his paintings are represented in many galleries in South Africa and abroad. His more than thirty solo exhibitions sold out every time and his commissions range from past State Presidents of South Africa to national and international corporate clients, various prestige hotel groups and local as well as international private collectors.

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The name Jan de Rooster immediately points to the fact that this artist is a full-blooded Belgian, hailing from that tiny country which produced so many world famous artists. He was born in the Flemish capital of Antwerp and in 1986 the De Rooster family immigrated to South Africa after Jan has spent most of his childhood in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Jan returned to his country of birth in 1975 to study art as a full-time student at the St Lucas Hoger Instituut Voor Beeldende Kunsten in Brussels, where he passed this challenging three year course with distinction. With his outstanding talent and hunger to develop and hone his creativity, he also enrolled for a four-year course at the Stedelyke Academie Voor Schone Kunsten in Leuven, once again graduating with outstanding merit.

During 1979 Jan held his first of nine solo exhibitions in Belgium, after his first exhibition at the tender age of 18 in South Africa when he introduced his wildlife paintings to the public. Since then many exhibitions in all the main centres of South Africa followed.

With his outstanding ability to capture detail in female figures, Jan has brought a fresh and exciting dimension to the South African art scene. It carries the unmistakable trademark of the European influence and has come to present the local public with a level of detail and quality rarely encountered before. Jan's art is sold all over the world and form part of private collections in Belgium, Netherlands, France. Portugal, Peru, Australia and Namibia.

Lately he has moved away from his popular etchings and pastels, and is now concentrating on figures in oil on canvas. The latest addition to his repertoire is experimenting with abstracts in oil, thereby capturing different moods in a way that adds an invigorating spectrum to this category of the South African market.

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Jac Kritzinger was born in 1976 in South Africa. This talented self-taught photographer is not afraid to experiment; although his lens is primarily drawn to the grandeur and diversity of nature, his images covers a wide range of subject matter, forcing us to look closer at what we percieve as everyday reality. He believes that, as spiritual and essentially visual beings, our world is constantly defined by the ethereal language of light. Every so often this language speaks to us in such a way that it transforms and enhances the reality which we percieve, revealing the brilliance and mystical beauty that resides just beneath the surface. His aim is to embrace and explore these moments.

In striving to capture this purer, almost heightened sense of reality when- and wherever it aims to express itself within daily life, Jac’s mastery of the medium is utilized to full poetic effect. His works are becoming well-known for their stark, dramatic sense of composition, resulting in a kind of clinical, almost mathematical beauty. Taut with symbolism and ever compelling, his images exudes a great sense of serenity; however, the promise of passionate kinetics and dynamic energy is often present within the frame.

He currently resides near Cape Point on the southernmost part of the Cape peninsula. The natural splendour and diversity of this region, dotted with quaint, bohemian villages, serves as a great source of inspiration.

To view more of his work, please visit www.relevantreality.co.za

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Born in 1980 in Cape Town, South Africa, Ryan van Rensburg is counted among the most exciting abstract artists currently invigorating the local market. Strongly influenced and guided from a young age by his father Derric, one of the country’s leading impressionists, he has exelled at creating and refining a bold, refreshing technique, resulting in a unique style which is entirely his own. Having travelled extensively throughout his life and finally settling down in Germany, Ryan has had little in the way of formal artistic schooling. With time, however, the budding artist has come to trust his raw talent and intricate powers of perception - the latter which is strongly influenced by the dark pulse undulating from the gritty inner cityscapes of post-war Europe.

Inspired by the raw essence of his surroundings, Ryan takes the world as he understands it and hands it back to us as an artistic verse of vibrant colour, rough texture and pure energy. Strongly reflecting his interest in broken city landscapes, architecture, graffiti and pop art culture, his work attempts to explore the multi-dimensional facades and icons which culminates into the physical, emotional and spiritual essence of modern inner city life. The uninhibited use of mixed media - incorporating oil, acrylic, stenciling and silk-screening onto canvas - serves to compliment the singular power of his vision, resulting in a fresh, dynamic statement. Stripping away what he believes to be the misleading nature of esthetics, the artist aims to introduce us to the underlying core of an alien world which is at the same time both dream-like and unforgivingly realistic.

Painting on a full-time basis since 2001, his work as been exhibited on numerous occasions in South Africa and Germany. He currently resides with his family in Leipzig.

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A seasoned veteran on the local art scene, Ron Waldeck’s astonishing ability to produce true to life depictions of his subjects has earned him many accolades and widely held respect over the course of his illustrious career. Having had no formal artistic education, and preferring acrylic to oil, his ability to convey detailed realism onto the canvas becomes even more remarkable. In perfecting his unique craft, he has been involved with the arts for almost three decades. He has been painting on a full time basis for the last ten years.

Ron’s love and passion for the animal form is clearly expressed in his incredibly lifelike depictions of South African wildlife in general, and domestic animals in particular. In portraying various household breeds, the level of meticulous realism is simply staggering. This suggests not only an intimate knowledge of the chosen subject, but also a profound connection with the universal animal spirit. This has come to personify the artist in his celebration on canvas of the remarkable bond between animal and man. Working strictly on commission, it is no surprise that Ron’s work has become extremely popular with animal lovers and especially pet owners around the world.

Apart from several successful local exhibitions, Ron’s work has also been exhibited in Namibia, Botswana and Germany. He has recently moved to Strand, a peaceful seaside town in the Western Cape, which has awakened in him a great passion for painting yachts and harbours. This nautical infusion is a welcome addition to his oeuvre, and has proven to be the perfect means to impel his distinctive brand of hyper-realism to new heights.

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Shaun Blatcher was born in Wiltshire, England in 1961. Following public school, he attended art college before progressing to the prestigious Byam Shaw in London, where he studied fine art and sculpture. Though he excelled at both, he was drawn to abstraction as he felt he was unable to capture reality in either landscape or portraits. After completing his studies, he worked as a commercial sculptor and artist throughout Europe. The diversity of these experiences has greatly contributed to his standing as one of the leading conceptual artists working in South Africa today.

Essentially, Shaun’s work is a unique fusion of art and sculpture, bringing a dynamic dimension to his abstract expression. Exciting and original, his works aim to capture the intangible, underlying patterns in formal reality, incorporating a wide range of mediums and techniques. His art draws its focus from the interactions, rhythms, discords, harmonies, challenges and triumphs that pulse through humanity. It could be described as a molecular cross section of human experience - our sophistications and primal forces woven together in a celebration of life. His art has been displayed in numerous exhibitions locally and abroad, and forms part of extensive private collections around the globe, including South Africa’s acclaimed SASOL compilation.

Following the frenetic pace of the European art scene, Shaun now works from his studio in picturesque St James on the Cape’s southern peninsula, which is also home to him and his family.

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A selection of privately owned classics featuring timeless works of art, predominantly by South African masters. Rare, exclusive and increasingly valuable, these pieces will appeal not only to discerning collectors, but to all who cherish the great tradition and heritage of South African art.

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