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North Coast Art with Angie Arbuthnot
North Coast Art with Angie Arbuthnot
Angie grew up on a cattle farm in the foothills of Giant's Castle. Her childhood was simple and colourful: playing creatively with other farm children, building houses out of sacks, making clay animals at the river and enjoying grass and beadwork with the ladieseven drawing, knitting and sewing. She trained as a junior primary teacher but at 39 the pressure to paint her pictures began to develop. After lessons with Dee Harris and Robin Townsend, Angie eventually painted under the tutorage of Pascale Chandler. Pascale motivated Angela to see a future in her art and persuaded her to enter the START Nivea Art Award.
This farm girl was chosen as one of 23 artists to go through a three month mentoring programme. Her mentor was Andrew Verster and his influence on the way she understood art was huge. She completed the Professional Practice Course at the KZNSA Gallery, tutored by Brenton Maart and participated a group exhibition, 'Mine'.
Photography is also a passion of Angies and has done courses with Angela Buckland and art courses with Anthea Martin. "Creativity is an expression of myself; a deep connection with something pure and ancient. It comes naturally, no striving or 'perfect' conditionsand when it comes, it's like a flowing river! There's a sense of great joy, often with surprise, to witness what I have achieved!"
Angie's art is synonymous with happy colour, used with gay abandon, seemingly undeterred by harmony or disharmony. She sketches with contour lines to 'walk' through the colour as if blind to the boundaries of shape.
She likes to paint quickly, often wet on wet to achieve paintings that are unpretentious and authentically 'real'.
At the moment she is working on a series of paintings for her solo exhibition, entitled "All things bright and beautiful!" This work is more contemporary in style, having fun with design and colour! She works from the familiar, the things she loves. Her cattle have always been an integral part of her art but this time she has romanticized them! Colour is important to her. Her contour drawing combine colour and design affectively to create a rhythm between the three distinguishing traits!
We look forward to seeing her in action at the demonstration and hope to see you there. Have a look at our Facebook page for more information.