Artwork

In the garden

2019 Competition entry

Detail
Tags

Thandi Sliepen

Details:
Signed
Oil on plywood
112 x 119 cm
R12 000
Description:
Inspired by the grain on a sheet of plywood I was about to add to a cob building (earth building) I am making in my garden – this painting is a stylistic departure for me. A fortuitous combination of local natural pigment oil paint (Joe Joubert) I was using for the first time and the plywood, a new medium for me. In the painting we see a man and woman separated by a thin white line, echoing each other. They reflect my own recent separation from my long-time partner.

While painting this a flock of Green Woodhoopoe was particularly active in my garden, the white one alludes to the ying yang elements in the work. Also in this garden in Ladybrand we sometimes see chameleons. While finishing this painting I was disturbed by finding two dead ones and no live ones yet this spring. I thing they are ‘Smiths dwarf chameleons’, they are endangered and it adds a feeling of loss to this work.

There are many aspects to this painting, the heads in the sandstone cliffs at the top and the underground stream at the bottom. One of the figures peeking out of the grain reminds me of a figure my mentor Martin Wessels might paint.

The title ‘In the Garden’ comes from this garden in Ladybrand that I am healing myself in. it also points to the mythical garden of Eden we have lost and that needs to be replanted and restored. Out natural selves we have become estranged from and in doing so we have lost our footing in the earth and are destroying it. We need to remember we are good and natural beings and belong in harmony with the earth and each other.

Oil

Detail
Tags

Thandi Sliepen

Details:
Signed
Oil on plywood
112 x 119 cm
R12 000

Description:
Inspired by the grain on a sheet of plywood I was about to add to a cob building (earth building) I am making in my garden – this painting is a stylistic departure for me. A fortuitous combination of local natural pigment oil paint (Joe Joubert) I was using for the first time and the plywood, a new medium for me. In the painting we see a man and woman separated by a thin white line, echoing each other. They reflect my own recent separation from my long-time partner.

While painting this a flock of Green Woodhoopoe was particularly active in my garden, the white one alludes to the ying yang elements in the work. Also in this garden in Ladybrand we sometimes see chameleons. While finishing this painting I was disturbed by finding two dead ones and no live ones yet this spring. I thing they are ‘Smiths dwarf chameleons’, they are endangered and it adds a feeling of loss to this work.

There are many aspects to this painting, the heads in the sandstone cliffs at the top and the underground stream at the bottom. One of the figures peeking out of the grain reminds me of a figure my mentor Martin Wessels might paint.

The title ‘In the Garden’ comes from this garden in Ladybrand that I am healing myself in. it also points to the mythical garden of Eden we have lost and that needs to be replanted and restored. Out natural selves we have become estranged from and in doing so we have lost our footing in the earth and are destroying it. We need to remember we are good and natural beings and belong in harmony with the earth and each other.

Oil