museums and botanical gardens I, 120 x 45 cm, oil on canvas

This is one of my personal favourites from my exhibition, Islands. You can still view the exhibition until the 2nd of April.

shifts and contrivances available in wild countries

Thank you to everyone who attended my exhibition opening and for the feedback. I am so grateful to have so much support. It has been very successful so far. You can still view the work at Lizamore & Assoc. Gallery until 2 April.

This work is called "shifts and contrivances available in wild countries", 2,4m x 1,1m

Let's talk about migraines

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Solo exhibition - Islands - official invitation

Opening: Thursday 12 March 2015 | 18:00

Opening speaker: Frikkie Eksteen - artist

Please join us for a drink  

and to meet the artists.

Preview: 12 March 2015 | 14:00 - 17:00 

Walkabout: 14 March 2015 | 11:00 

Artist's Statement - Islands

To those who meditate travel …

If you have health, a great craving for adventure, at least a moderate fortune, and can set your heart on a definite object, which old travellers do not think impracticable, then – travel  by all means.

Francis Galton¹

I spent much of my year travelling abroad, although I barely left my studio or South Africa. Places described in science fiction novels, conversations and podcasts dictated where I would explore. I wandered through a world unknown to me on Google street view and often became disoriented when I looked up from the screen, only to find myself in the physical space I was in. 

My studio became an island - a threshold between my daily reality and the elusive and flexible spaces of both the internet and painting. Where South Africa was considered a wild and mysterious country by 19^th century explorers¹, it became the vantage point for me, and the rest of the world became the wild.

The island can be considered a place of isolation and escape, yet it is also hard to escape from. It is either looked at from a distance or is seen as a remote outpost from which to stare back. It is typically fertile, lush, untouched, timeless and its tribulations are obscured.  Nothing happens on the deserted island until the explorers arrive, like a blank canvas with all its possibility and abundance.  Like the ocean seen from an island, street view scenery has an unyielding horizon, beyond which an inaccessible outside lies. It is always summer there and all places seem to bear uncanny similarities.

I became intrigued by the ambiguous shifting and transitional effects that can be seen when navigating in street view, such as digital glitches and the distorted perspectives of peculiarly curved streets, which rendered the surroundings island-like. I retained and emphasized the digital artefacts presented in this, still-imperfect, computer-stitched version of reality. Painting them became a layered process of translation, further obscuring the ultimate source of these images. They developed from the physical to the virtual, auto-stitched composite, to my own adaptation in paint.

In this work I am not weighing up virtual reality against real experience, nor am I seeking the ultimate picturesque landscape. I was looking for a way of dealing with the simultaneous comfort of the familiar and a longing and curiosity for the unknown. I realised that, although seemingly boundless worlds beyond my studio can be accessed, this experience is inevitably shaped, restricted and predetermined by the medium through which it is viewed.

The few images that ended up as paintings from the countless distant curiosities I have homed in on became my own subjective imaginings, detached from its origins. The paintings did not necessarily bring the islands any closer, and by enfolding one medium within another, perhaps rendered them even more impenetrable.

¹ Galton, F. 1855. The art of travel, or shifts and contrivances available in wild countries.  Fifth edition. London: John Murray.  (All text included in the paintings is taken from this book)


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Save The Date - Islands

I am now in the last month of preparation for my first Solo exhibition and feeling very excited. 

Please note this is not the official invitation. It will be sent out about a week before the exhibition. It is a reminder to save the date, as I hope to see you all there.

Preparing for "Islands" at Nirox

I have been spending some time at 58 Maker's Workshop at Nirox, working on some canvases too big for my studio. It is an inspiring and relaxing environment making it too easy to forget the rest of the world. I can't wait to show you these on the 12th of March at Lizamore an Assoc. Gallery.

Thank you Allen for the support.

I'm still here

To those who meditate Travel...

Perhaps you might be wondering why I have been so quiet lately. I have been working on my solo exhibition, ISLANDS, for the past few months and I am still going strong. I don't want to share too much before the exhibition.

So far I have about 25 paintings, most of which still need retouching, finalising and framing, I might also decide to discard some, as my process have been very experimental and some things worked, some didn't. I also have a few more paintings up my sleeve, so I will be working non-stop until the 5th of March. I have made the biggest painting I have ever made, and I painted some things I thought I never would. Looking back, there are a many things I would have done differently and there are a million more paintings I still want to make, but I will do as much as time will allow.

Save the date: 6 March, 2015, Lizamore and Associates Gallery, Johannesburg.

I hope to see you there.

If you wish to be on the mailing list for invites, email 

me: heidiheidifourie@gmail.com or  

The Gallery: info@lizamore.co.za