Artists - Paintings

Franny Simpson

mixed media on paper

A second generation Kenyan, born in Nakuru, in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya, Frances Simpson spent her childhood on a farm, sketching, painting and climbing ‘kopjies’ in the dry bush with her four siblings. “Done nothing” was a common entry in her daily diary, but actually perfect training for the eye of a self-taught artist. Leaving Africa for the first time at the age of 19 to study for a degree in music, Franny was intrigued by the ‘civilised’ world, and travelled with sketchbook rather than camera to the USA, India, Nepal and Europe. She lived in London and worked in ceramic restoration. Yearning for the earth with which she grew up, Franny returned to Africa where she recovered inspiration, and she is now a prolific and diverse painter, working constantly from her studio in Naivasha, Kenya. In her paintings, Frances Simpson creates strong linear movement with charcoal and inks to contrast with vibrant washes of watercolour. Highlighting the magentas, reds, oranges and indigos of tribal fabrics on top of her sienna and ochre earth tones, she produces work in which the shifting life and the dusty magic of Africa are immortalized. And she always prefers to paint on location straight on to paper or canvas, reflecting the immediacy of tribal and village life around her. Her paintings are included in private collections worldwide; safari lodges throughout East Africa; CfC Stanbic Bank in Nairobi and Mombasa; and has exhibited in Nairobi, Tanzania, Austria, and the UK.

Arthur Azevedo

ink

Arthur Azevedo was born in Harare in 1935 and studied in Cape Town and Italy before returning to Zimbabwe to become an art teacher in 1960’s. Since then, he has taught, painted and sculpted full-time for five decades and is now considered to be the leading light in the Harare art world. He is rightly attributed with founding the scrap metal sculpture movement and his retrospective at the National Gallery 12 years ago can now be regarded as premature, as he keeps on breaking new ground, epitomised by his latest show at Gallery Delta a year ago.

Elizabeth Vels

mixed media on handmade cotton paper

Elizabeth Vels is an extremely well-respected artist in Cape Town, South Africa, who works in mixed media, painted canvas and paper. Born in 1937, Elizabeth was both a nurse and a teacher, before qualifying in paper-making and printing in the early 1980’s. She chose to work predominately in paper, because of its history in record keeping. Diaries, sketches, notes, symbols and archaeological fragments all interest Elizabeth. She is always searching for, “the miraculous in the everyday.” In her own words; “canvas, cast papers, paint, etchings, thread, stitching, scrubbing and scraping are all composted into my work, concealing & revealing the textures and relics that make metaphors for life.”
Elizabeth has exhibited in Germany, Israel and USA, as well as extensively in South Africa, and has work in many prominent public exhibitions.

Milly Jones

oil on canvas

Milly describes her paintings as bold expressions of colour, shape and mood. She is also concerned with the formal qualities of painting and its processes. Her paintings are constructed and deconstructed many times over, often with little or no conscious decision of her own, while the work takes on a life of its own. Painting is, for her, a true expression of freedom.
After completing her art degree in 1998, Milly travelled and documented her movements in sketches. She subsequently sold paintings in England, Scotland, France and USA, before returning to South Africa. She began by living in Knysna, now paints from home at Pringle Bay.
As well as being an artist, Milly works with her husband Charlie to run The Green House garden and home co. which specializes in landscaping, irrigation, horticulture and garden maintenance as well as interior design/decor in the Overberg area of the Western Cape.

Jane Digby

oil on canvas

South African artist, Jane Digby, was born in Grahamstown in 1968. Still living up the east coast of South Africa, Jane is inspired by the country and its people. “I usually paint from my own photographic references and experiences; in that way I always feel a connection with the subject. My paintings are spontaneous, I let the mood of the painting take me, the paint and brushes take charge. Whilst I do paint a variety of subjects, portraits are my most rewarding and challenging.  I yearn to capture the essence of the African people, expressing through my art their dignity, pride and hardships. All my paintings are about depth of light, texture and colour but most importantly depth of character and emotion. Each portrait asks one to ponder over the thoughts of the character; each landscape makes one wonder over the nature of the day”. Jane paints quickly and spontaneously; her subject matter depending on the mood of the moment. “When a painting is going well it takes me off to another place; it is that feeling that keeps me painting”.

Linchen Kirchner

pastel

Linchen was born in Johannesburg, South Africa into a very artistic and musical family. Her childhood holidays were spent in wild, unspoilt parts of the country and from this exposure Linchen developed a very caring and passionate feel for beautiful, natural places. Linchen’s work captures the different aspects of nature from vast open landscapes to detailed bird and botanical studies and quirky African scenes. Her work is painted and created using different mediums and styles best suited to capturing her love of nature and art. In her spare time, Linchen travels to the wildest, most sacred places on this planet. She hikes, plays the piano and guitar, and loves animals, gardening and cooking. Her work hangs in many private collections around the world, and she has exhibited in London and South Africa.

Lorraine Piers

alpaca felt

Although born in Zimbabwe, Lorraine Piers regards South Africa as home and she returned there in 2000, after 20 years of living and working in Germany, to make a difference to the new South African democracy. Realising that employment is key in rural areas, she set up a small business in McGregor, Western Cape, which specializes in creating unique, quality handmade interior decor products, using recycled natural materials. In line with the use of such materials for her craft business, she gets felt from local ex-Zimbabwean alpaca farmers, and designs her original boxed artworks.

Karen Laurence-Rowe

signed limited edition print on canvas

Born in Uganda, Karen Laurence had a nomadic childhood and experienced Africa in the early sixties; unspoilt and teeming with game. After leaving school in Zimbabwe, Karen went to SA to study Graphic Design and work in advertising before the pull of her early roots drew her back to East Africa. She returned with her family to live in Kenya, and began to concentrate on fine art, inspired by the wonderful light for which Kenya is well known. Karen is a versatile artist, adept at landscapes, figurative work and wildlife, and she is represented by galleries in New York and Wyoming, USA, and in London and Cornwall, UK. She has also now opened her own gallery in Nairobi.

Marion Martin

oil on board

Marion Martin lives in York, but Africa is her passion. She has sketched and painted in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa and “every trip leaves me longing to return again as soon as I can. Africa excites and stimulates the senses with its heat and light and rich vibrant colours; its huge sweeping vistas and vast skies; its scents and sounds and the incredible variety of wild life; and, not least, the warmth and generosity of the people.” In 2001, Marion completed her Visual Arts Degree course at Cheltenham Art College, and since then she has partaken in numerous group exhibitions in UK, as well as held two solo exhibitions in York in 2004.

Elva Palombo

mixed media collage on paper

Elva Palombo came to Zimbabwe as a child from Scotland and had no formal art training. Self-taught, she took part in numerous group and one-woman shows before moving to Cape Town nine years ago. There she has made a big impression on the art world, and she is now a regular exhibitor at shows around the Peninsula. Elva works in a multitude of media. Wildlife is her focal point, but she often mixes abstraction with realism. She incorporates strong elements of design and is inspired by natural and man-made imagery she sees around her.

Mary-Jane Alexander

oil on canvas

Mary-Jane Alexander revels in colour. Born in Zimbabwe, she studied Fine Art at UCT under Maurice van Esshe, a pupil of Matisse. She lectured in anatomy and life drawing at the Bulawayo Art College, before moving to UK in 1977, where she became Head of Art at the Elmhurst Ballet School. Moving on from figurative drawing, her recent landscapes are loose and inviting, produced at prodigious speed on the spot, to convey a riot of colour and untamed nature. It has been a logical progression too, from landscape to still-life, with Mary-Jane gathering up nature and bringing it indoors in a vibrant, haphazard fashion which reflects both her style and her personality. “I am compelled to paint,” she says, “it is my connection to the world.” Mary-Jane now exhibits at prestigious galleries throughout UK, and her work is becoming highly sought after.

Wendy Rosselli

monoprint on watecolour paper

Born and educated in Johannesburg, Wendy Roselli continued her art studies at St Martin’s in London, before settling in Zimbabwe in the late 50’s. For the next four decades she exhibited regularly at the National Gallery, winning awards for merit and distinction and being selected for public and private collections worldwide. In 2003, Wendy returned to SA and now lives and paints in the artist paradise of Kommetjie on the western peninsular of the Cape. She mainly works in oils, and through her subtle palette she plays with the use of light, colour and space to great effect. Shoreline and seagulls are her new inspiration, but her famed baobabs from her years up country are in her blood and she is known to be the best arboreal artist in the Cape.

Sheena Chadwick

oil on canvas

Sheena Chadwick arrived in Zimbabwe from Scotland in 1963 and has been teaching and painting there ever since. She is now regarded as one the best artists in the country today. Sheena usually paints landscapes in oils and she aptly portrays the rich earthy tones of Africa, with its big skies, wide horizons, immense trees and open spaces. Always painting from life, Sheena travels all over southern Africa to capture the unsurpassable vistas, wildlife and light.

Sally Rush

watercolour

Sally concentrates on detail, and delights in depicting smaller African wildlife. So life-like are her feather paintings that viewers often try to pick the feather off the base. But in fact the feathers are watercolour paintings of the monoprints Sally creates of the original feather onto wood veneers. Sally studied fine art at The Johannesburg Art Collage and got her diploma in 1980, whilst concurrently working as a furniture designer. She took up art seriously when she moved to The Crags on the beautiful Cape Garden Route 2001. “Living in paradise away from the city is very conducive to living out my dream as an artist”.

Nadia Kisseleva

mixed media on canvas

Fluctuating between landscapes, portraiture, abstract and figurative work, Nadia constantly expands her boundaries. “I realize that to achieve further growth and development of my work, I must continuously challenge it, even if it has already been successful and popular.” Born in Voronesh, Russia, Nadia has trained at the Ryazan College of Art; the Academy of Art in Leningrad; the University of Central England and the Wimbledon School of Art, and is now an Associate Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. At present, she lives between Kenya, Austria and UK and exhibits successfully in all three countries. The people of East Africa remain one of her main inspirations, but she is also currently exploring the development of a floral portfolio, in a bid to seek the unusual in the banal.

Haymanot Tesfa

oil on canvas

Haymanot Hulu Tesfa was born in Harar, Ethiopia, where she did her diploma in painting at The School of Fine Arts. She had two solo shows and partook in many group exhibitions at different stages in Ethiopia before 2003. In 2009, Haymanot had her first solo exhibition in UK, promoted by the South East Open Studio. This was followed by a second Solo exhibition in UK in 2010. Haymanot uses mixed techniques and does still-life, portraiture and illustrative work. One of her paintings was published on the back cover of the Journal of Human Rights Practice, Volume 1 Number 1 in 2009. As well as an artist, Haymanot is a singer and a writer. She says,” I’m living on our beautiful earth to admire words, melody, colours and nature, which gives me inspiration to be creative. I love sharing a happy moment when brushes dance on canvas.”

Sonja Nel

oil on canvas

Spending part of her youth in the Wilderness, on the coast of the Western Cape in South Africa, left a huge impact on Sonja and ever since she has been inspired by the timeless quality of the sea. Sea birds, fish and boats often feature in her work too. Her style is expressive, naive, poetic and spiritual, and it depicts the aloneness of the individual, celebrating both the abundance and the lack thereof in life. Her modern paintings depict strong colours contrasting with soft lines, which carry more than a resonance of Picasso in approach. Sonja, who still lives in the Cape Province near the sea, with her husband, children and beloved cats, also sculpts in clay and creates whimsical blue ceramic tiles.

Lorraine England

watercolour on paper

Lorraine is a pure watercolourist, shunning all other mediums for this masterful art form. With no formal training, she has taught herself from books, demonstrations and workshops and her subject matter is varied. She has been an active member of the illustrious South African Society of Artists (S.A.S.A.) for 18 years, as well as a member of the Fish Hoek Art Society, which is the town in which she now lives, for the past fifteen years.

Mandy Coppes

beads & pins on handmade paper

Born in South Africa and living in Gauteng, Mandy is a paper professional. She was awarded three consecutive scholarships from the technikon research committee to complete her masters degree in papermaking and was awarded best post-graduate research student. The thrust of her research was dedicated to finding invasive plant fibres to utililse for hand papermaking in a rural context. Apart from creating her own original artwork, she now works in rural areas in South Africa, advising small business enterprises on producing hand-made paper.

Alan Gray

paper collage

Alan lives and works in the small town of Robertson, in the winelands of the Western Cape, South Africa, after graduating in Fine Art from Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He experiments with a variety of media from photography to collage, and has developed a deep love and appreciation of the South African landscape and its’ wildlife. His work, in all its variety, remains local in its content, and attempts to capture the unique African environment.

Kate Raath

oils on canvas

Kate Raath was born in Masvingo, Zimbabwe in 1949 and was raised on a cattle farm. After her degree in Fine Art at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, RSA, she worked in the printing industry in Johannesburg.
Returning to Zimbabwe in l975 she began a career in art, teaching intermittently at various state secondary schools in Harare. In the mid 1980’s Kate got her diploma in design for print and graphic design at the Harare Polytechnic. She then lectured at the Polytechnic in design and fine art. In 1990, Kate began painting herself again after a break of almost 20 years.

Richard Jack

serpentine stone rubbings

Richard Jack describes himself as a mixed media artist. Having combined various materials in sculpture, painting and graphics since the mid 70’s, the main direction of his work in recent years has been with sculpture. These rubbings are produced by etching his design into the serpentine, then inking the stone before prinitng it onto handmade Japanese rice paper. Born in Zimbabwe, Richard grew up in South Africa, only returning to his homeland in 1981 after Independence. After living in the oppressive regimes of both Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, it was a relief to him to be able to create freely in an aura of optimism. However, with the advent of economic collapse and political instability in 2001, Richard concluded that, “politics is corrupt everywhere” and reluctantly moved his family to England, where he has been tutoring at the University of Creative Arts in Surrey. He remains one of Zimbabwe’s foremost and important artists, having exhibited extensively in Africa and Europe.