ABOUT
Go beyond the finished painting.
Learn more about the paintings through the ideas, process and experiences behind them.
WHY PAINT?
Painting asks for time. For attention. For understanding.
Even the most familiar subject changes the longer it is observed. A landscape is more than a collection of hills and trees. A portrait is more than a likeness to the sitter. A still life is more than arranged objects.
At first the subject is simply the subject. Then a shift takes place. The relationship between painter and subject is altered. The subject is no longer simply the subject.
Memory, emotion and experience become part of the work. Painting brings them into relationship through colour, structure and form.
The finished work is not an image of what was seen.
It is the record of transformation.
THE PROCESS
Drawing establishes the first relationships, but it does not determine the painting. As the work develops, colours change, shapes move and compositions are rebuilt.
A hillside may become a single rhythm across the canvas. A face may lose its resemblance while becoming more recognisable for reasons that have little to do with appearance.
Nothing exists in isolation. A change in colour alters the weight of a form. Move an edge and the balance of the composition shifts. Compress space and distance begins to disappear. Every decision changes the relationships around it.
Gradually the painting begins to organise itself. Structure replaces description. Colour carries emotion as much as light. Composition stops arranging the subject and begins holding the painting together.
By then, the painting no longer depends on what first inspired it.
A WAY OF SEEING
Nothing is ever seen in isolation.
A colour changes because another colour sits beside it. Space gives form its weight. Light gives shadow its purpose.
A mountain depends as much on the sky as it does on the rock beneath it. Remove one relationship and everything changes.
The world is not built from separate things.
It is built from relationships.
Painting is simply one way of making them visible.
BACKGROUND
André Pienaar is a South African painter based in Cape Town.
He comes from a family of both professionally trained and self-taught artists. Painting was never presented as something exceptional. It was simply part of everyday life.
Time spent living in Germany and Russia, together with years of travelling and hiking throughout Europe and Southern Africa, continues to influence the places and subjects that return in his work.
His practice is informed as much by the history of art and philosophy as by time spent in the landscape, each continuing to shape the questions he brings into the studio.
