About me
My love for art started at home – my dad Dan Swart was an artist and art teacher, and I started my artistic education by watching him at work, poring through his books, and was encouraged to get my own fingers covered with paint.
In high school, I attended the National School of the Arts in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, where I explored technique in a wide range of mediums. I’ve always been drawn to both fine art and “crafts” – ceramics, textile arts, anything colourful, tactile and expressive. I’ve never seen a clear line between the two. I love works of art that can be worn and used, as well as those that can be admired on the wall behind the couch .
Though I didn’t get around to completing my fine art degree, I’ve trained under several local artists whose work I deeply admire, including Tracey Witelson, Greg Kerr, Anthony Shapiro, and Loren Kaplan – alongside the lifelong influence of my father.
My studio is located at my home in leafy Observatory, one of the oldest suburbs in Johannesburg, and I spend a good deal of my time in there. I create art using multiple mediums, including oil and acrylic paint, pencil, charcoal and ink – on paper, board, canvas and just about anything I can get my sticky hands on. I also knit, sew, embroider, and can even be provoked into making whimsically tiny things out of polymer clay. However, portraiture remains at the heart of my practice. Through the years I’ve developed a keen eye for human faces and figures, and the nuances of expression and colour which make someone unmistakably themselves. I have painted hundreds of portraits, both commissioned by my lovely clients, and of my own friends and family.
My commissions are both corporate and personal, and sometimes personal commissions come from my corporate clients too. My corporate portrait projects are painted on identical small canvases – each team member is presented with a unique hand-painted-by-me portrait as part of their HR induction pack, and these are destined for large foyer displays. My private commissions are varied – newborn babies to funerary portraits, wedding portraits, whole family groups and just quietly seated individuals, looking important.
On the personal front, I’m very happily married for 24 years and have raised 3 wonderful children to adulthood. Ours is a creative family: My husband is an IT genius, passing down his super-smarts to our lucky offspring, and I focus on nurturing creativity in my children, now that they can use the bathroom by themselves and eat vegetables without being asked.
I have exhibited my works in multiple shows and galleries, including:
- Hamilton Gallery at The Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town (where a number of my artworks are currently hanging)
- The Storr Room at 27 Boxes in Melville, Johannesburg
- The Spaza Gallery in Troyeville, Johannesburg
- A selection of my works will be part of an exhibition at Fortuna gallery in Vienna, Austria in April this year
When not painting, you will find me trying out something new in my kitchen, pottering around the veggie garden, feeding my chickens or trying to manage the many dogs and cats that our old house seems to randomly spawn. At any given moment, my long-suffering family will tell you that I have at least half a dozen half-finished projects on the go around the house. I am always making something; finishing things, maybe not as often.
Creativity, in all its forms, remains a cornerstone of my identity. My life abounds with music, art, vigorous dinner table debates, and the occasional intimidating intellect and stray chicken.
