Edna Fourie
Artist Biography
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“I am a full-time artist who lives and works on my farm near McGregor in the heart of the Breede River Valley. Being immersed in nature on a daily basis is my driving force and muse. My oil paintings depict images such as figures, flowers, birds ...and bugs, which become carriers of deeper meaning. The theme running through all my work is inner transformation – both personal and universal. My art celebrates the reawakening of the visionary in all of us.
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Light is the most important component in my work. A multitude of overlapping layers of thinned oil paint create a luminosity and ethereal, meditative quality. This gives my paintings a spiritual identity. Light seems to emanate from my paintings, rather than bounce off the canvas – it becomes a metaphor for making the unseen visible. The concept of layering also becomes a metaphor for the shedding of the many layers of social conditioning: ‘Peeling back the layers and finding underneath all the emotional layers Was a void of nothingness and falling through that gateway I had come into the extraordinary presence of my own soul’ (Brandon Bays).
My art focuses on the resulting outcome of crisis and challenges – not the drama. Its message is global, and it contains the feminine quality of gentleness which is so sorely lacking in today’s world. I have an Honours degree from Stellenbosch University (1980). My art career spans four decades and includes numerous solo and group exhibitions. I also managed my own gallery in McGregor for 12 years (2007 – 2019). During this time, it was the exclusive home of my art for 12 years. My work is in private collections nationally and internationally.”