Serenity, the Landscape of Unfurling Fulfillment 2013

Solo Exhibition at Association of Arts Pretoria - October 2013

My subject matter is not preconceived, instead I allow shapes, textures and lines to lead my imagination. As I prepare my canvas and prepare the background, I consider the emerging image. This may take days or weeks and I return to the work time and time again, reworking and changing the composition or removing unnecessary elements.

I remove whole elements using a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine. I then form layers of colours; first by using washes of oil pigments thinned with turpentine and later apply oil-based glazes. This creates a rich velvety and deep richness and tends to create a contrasting play of light and shade of minimal colour and varied texture. The tangible values of the surface is worked sensitively countless times and with many applications. This leaning to tonal values gives the work a feeling of light and dark; while the use of colour is parse and delicate which is absorbed with these influences.

The procedure is firstly to establish a delicate background hue, and then to brush other colours over it. The variation of the layers resonate and resound like visual music, following that procedure thin layers of oil paint are rubbed onto the surface, fill the cracks and become ingrained as fine linear etchings. The gradation from one colour to another suggest the meeting of the sky and earth and provides an atmospheric effect. I favour bold horizons suggestive of vast distances.

My works are not pictorially specific. Painting is an unspoken dialogue of widespread colour and the artist responds to that atmosphere. Art should be devoid of all claptrat. So, why should I not call my works symphonic arrangements and harmonies?

Opening Speech by Andre Naude

The artist uses the material tools at his disposal and embarks on a road unknown. For this process his trained mind and hand collaborate. As this process is taking place, the artist's eye observes, comprehends and the left brain interrupts the right brain in a continuous rhythm perpetuation. Painting employs several elements to construct this non-figurative world. In a nutshell, colour. shape, form, line and texture. These elements of art are used to create the original genesis of illusion on the surface. The illusion can also be denied. Implicit to Abstract art is the notion that the work of art exists in its own right and not necessarily as a mirror of reality.

Hierdie reeks werke van Willie van Rensburg beweeg weg van doelgerigde wesenlike beplanning, aangaande inhoud, konsep, kommentaar of serebrale verklaring. Van die werke verwys miskien na seegolwe wat uitspoel op die strand, die sand, die klippe, seewier, skulpe en die proses wat herhaal en herhaal. Sekere van die werke het die kunstenaar vertikaal gehang i.p.v. Lug, horizon, aarde.

These are the works that engage me at once the faraway distance (illusionary) is reduced to small immediary. Half a door frame, squares, aged textures, amorphous forms or shapes protrude while tactile surfaces invite the hand to touch.

Die wisselwerking tussen skilder's hand en die terugwerking van die doek oppervlakte begin 'n twee gesprek tussen die hand en die oppervlakte. Intuitief betree die kunstenaar hierdie oppervlakte en gooi die verf, olie, emosie, frustasie en dan is rondte een voltooi. Olie verf leer die kunstenaar ook van geduld selfs Jackson Pollock het ook laag op laag gewerk.

Neo-Plasticism, a term coined by dutch artist Piet Mondrian relinquished all but the straight line, the rectangle and primary colours, white black and grey. This collection moves on various levels of interpretation. It is the viewer's prerogative to look, see , perceive, observe, discover and identify the work which is a red dot work.

Baie geluk Willie, dis diep!