About Me

My interest in art began aged eight. I fell in love with horses, which led to drawing them over and over. I was given my first set of oil paints at 14, which led to a love of landscapes as well. Ignoring an early art teacher’s comment that I wasn’t very good, I went on to receive the high school art prize two years later.

I graduated with a Fine Arts degree from Wits University in 1988, exhibiting work twice as a student ­- once in New Signatures and once in the Gertrude Posel gallery. After graduating, I decided to pursue a different career, not picking up a brush for twenty years. Part of me kept saying, one day, I will be an artist again.

I was in fact striving very hard to pay off my house and be as financially secure as possible, in order to pursue art proper. I started painting again in 2006, realizing that a full-time job and a career as a part time artist was in fact possible and probably much more sensible.

I mainly use oils. I love painting landscapes and quirky themes juxtaposing animals with unexpected surroundings. I want to make art that is visually appealing and carefully crafted.

I am currently exploring a past theme of animals in interior settings reminiscent of the Victorian age, which I call “The Usurpers”. I use a realistic, traditional style to create convincingly natural tableaus.

A subtle critique of human appropriation of the natural world runs through my animal paintings. Evoking the era of colonial imposition with antique furniture, I depict the animals as “reverse usurpers” of our human spaces.

My landscapes are inspired by my travels around South Africa and my love of hiking. I take pictures on all my hikes, always with the idea to turn them into paintings.