"Pacific pandanus goddesses" Painting

Steffi Hartt lives in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales where the subtropical climate and lush plants remind her of her childhood in KwaZulu, South Africa. After studying fine art at Natal University, she embarked on further study in a London art school in painting and printmaking, with a special passion for colour theory, optical art and the illusions that we experience when colour is allowed to work its incredible magic. From London to Australia where she worked fulltime for three decades as an art critic, teacher, curator and edited a culture magazine. During all this time she privately kept up her landscape sketches while exploring wild places in Australia as well as in SE Asia and the Pacific. Lately she is working fulltime at painting and refining her drawing skills. She is building on the earlier works where Fauvist colour and expressionism are strongly dominant and allow her passion for this sublimely unspoiled part of the world to be indulged. The bush, the rivers, the hills and the rainforests of the region are intoxicatingly beautiful and she aims to express this joy and excitement in her paintings.