Exhibitions

1994 - Student Exhibition: Port Elizabeth Technikon

1995 - Honours Exhibition: King George VI Art Gallery

1996 - G.A.P. Grahamstown National Arts Festival

1997 - G.A.P. Grahamstown National Arts Festival

1997 - Private Exhibition: Brussels

2001 - Group Exhibition: Grahamstown National Arts Festival

2002 - Artist in Residence: Knysna Arts Festival

2003 - Tuesday Guild: Creative Design Gallery

2004 - Group Exhibition: Grahamstown National Arts Festival

2004 - Tuesday Guild: Robyn Fuller Gallery

2005 - Tuesday Guild: Robyn Fuller Gallery

2006 - Tuesday Guild: Robyn Fuller Gallery

2006 - Grahamstown National Arts Festival

2007 - Tuesday Guild: Robyn Fuller Gallery

2009 - PE Academy of Arts: Grahamstown National Arts Festival

2009 - Group Exhibition: Ruwach Art Gallery

2011 - Two Man Show: ArtEc

2014 - Masters Final Exhibition: The Athenaeum

2014 - Wish You Were Here: ART Events

2014 - Here Be Dragons: Underculture Contemporary

2014 - Spring Show: Art on Target

2015 - Landscapes of Consequence: Grahamstown Festival

2015 - FODDER: Underculture Contemporary

2016 - 18+SNLV: Underculture Contemporary

2016 - Material(i)sation: Gallery in the Yard

2016 - Manuscript: Gallery in the Yard

2016 - Oil on Canvas: Art It Is

2016 - Carinus Art Auction: Carinus Center, Grahamstown

2016 - Something Left to Save: Grahamstown Festival

2016 - Landscapes: GFI Gallery

2016 - The Art of Appreciation: Art It Is

2016 - Sex and Death: Alex Hamilton Gallery

2016 - Just Painting Exhibition: NM Metro Art Museum

2017 - UNTITLED: Moor Gallery

2017 - Enigmata: Moor Gallery

2017 - Immaterium: Henry George Gallery

2017 – Painterly: Grande Provence

2017 – Immaterium: Joburg Art

2017 – Grahamstown National Arts Festival

Bio

I always have been deeply interested in the fine arts. Specifically, painting and drawing have always held a special fascination for me. Growing up in Brussels, field and family trips to the museums and galleries were a regular and special treat.

After finishing school, I finally got a chance to study fine arts at University, where I discovered a passion for history and theory, as well as pursuing my focus on painting. I also discovered, towards the end of my time there, a talent for teaching and the years I spent lecturing were some of the best of my life.

Since then, I have continues to paint, draw, and exhibit regularly. More recently, though, I returned to these studies, some 15 years later, to complete my Mtech: Fine Arts, which have helped me, especially as a mature student, focus and sharpen my artistic eye.

I supplement my deep love of the contemporary fine arts by running Port Elizabeth’s primary contemporary art space: Underculture Contemporary.

Artist's Statement

“I am the result of a bad joke: “Turner, Rothko, and Magritte walk into a bar…”

In our lives, we encounter moments of absolute isolation and deep silence. In those moments, if we are equipped with a modicum of introspection, we are confronted with the Cosmos and, more importantly, our utter insignificance in the face of it. Questions of 'why are we here?' and 'what does it all mean?' become nonsense: the terrifying magnitude and endless power of the Cosmos simply overwhelm and devour.

It is a confrontation with something bigger than death: it is the end of meaning. It erases all our actions, all our dreams, and noble and base passions. All that remains in the end is Goya's Saturn endlessly devouring until he, himself, is devoured until all traces are annihilated.

It is the Gothic and Romantic Sublime but without the subsequent elevation. It is terror and madness without respite. And it is no wonder we do anything and everything to pretend it is not there.

We consume. We fill our lives with noise and light and things. Facebook and YouTube are only the latest manifestation of the primordial urge to keep away the endless dark. We consume. We fill our homes and live with the latest, the brightest, and the most modern. We consume noise and images. We consume drugs and religion and patriotism alike, anything to give our lives a semblance of order, meaning and purpose. Maybe then, we can transcend the yawning void.

It is, therefore, with no little irony that our society, built as it is to consume and consume (more and more to somehow keep the Cosmos at bay), has engendered its own end, and the end of all to which we ascribe meaning.

The will to alter our mad race does not exist. Or, rather, it exists, but only by those who have confronted the Devouring Cosmos and have chosen to fight at Ragnarok, like the Norse of Old, not because they will win, but because dying fighting, as Dylan Thomas reminds us, is the only way. Unfortunately, those are few and far between, and not nearly enough to change our need to distract and consume.

The result is a global environmental catastrophe. It is here. It is too late. And it brings with it the Eternal Void.

Art is the result of this personal confrontation with the Immortal Chaos. Art arises out of isolation, silence, and solitude. It emerges simply to bear witness. We see it in the eyes of Rembrandt or the colour fields of Newman. Everywhere you look, from Tapies to Rothko and Turner, there are the remains of a deep, honest, simple introspection and defiance.

Art is the opposite of consumption. Art is a witness.”