"Whitemare" Painting

I am a painter, living and working on the False Bay coast of Cape Town, with my sculptor husband and 2 teenage children. For most of my art career my work was predominantly focused on issues around the representation of different women, their struggles and identities and cultural circumstances. South Africa is historically a complex environment that embodies many stories around gender and identity. More recently, as in this body of work, my focus has shifted to representing more personal narratives, both whimsical and nostalgic. Rooted in my own identity and childhood in South Africa, growing up in a time of carefree abandonment and freedom. Horses have become symbolic to me of that time when we ran wild - innocent and mostly oblivious to the complex world outside of our immediate surroundings. These works often represent the happy place of youth, the bond with horses and nature in a time where technology was non-existent and we had no idea how much the world would change. We are the last generation of childhoods where boredom was a luxury and days were simple with endless possibilities for adventure.