Carien Otto

My work is primarily concerned with the transformation of painting, drawing or sculpture, into an existential drama with compositions of colour, line and form. I believe that it is this, the composition and arrangement of form, line and colour, which make an object aesthetically pleasing, and not so much what it represents in reality... That an aesthetic object, a painting or sculpture, is a new creation, and not a representation of nature.

I’ve been creating art all my life; as a small child I lost myself in clay universes and making soap stone animals on the game farm in South Africa where I grew up. I have continued drawing, painting and sculpting. After my graduation from The University of Pretoria in 2000 I embarked on a fruitful design career. I moved to London in 2005 where I have now been happily living and working for 10 years.

Currently I’m working on a body of work for another exhibition next year. My work consists of 3 series’ respectively called; The connected nature of trees, The Nude as a landscape and Home is a place on earth.

1996-1999: BA Fine Art, Art History and Visual Communication, University of Pretoria, South Africa

2016: Solo exhibition Colour Connect, Battersea London

2010: Group exhibition called Ultra at The Colomb Art Gallery in Marylebone

2005: Solo exhibition, Pretoria, South Africa

2004: Group ceramic exhibition in xxx gallery, Pretoria, South Africa