Virginia Hadfield

I live in Durban,a semi tropical city on the east coast of South Africa - a place which is colourful, humid and holidayish but at the same time a major port.

I guess because of our warm ever-summer climate and South African sunshine I embrace colour. I love colour.

Perhaps too because I have emerged from a difficult adjustment in my life, my work now reflects something more light hearted, happy and simple. At the very least, I hope it imparts a celebration of brightness!

Last year I worked almost exclusively in pencil, drawing African wild life, flora and fauna as well as landscapes in black and white.From the drawings I made and marketed greeting cards which were locally well received but, as I said, black and white.

I am in love now with modern luminous paint. And lines. The figures recently painted are seeking out my own feeling of femininity, a womanhood at the same time both powerful and fragile. Ever young, ever timeless - where age does not matter. What matters is truth and grace.

Studied Fine Art at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Significant teachers were Cecily Sash, Judith Mason, Guiseppe Cattaneo, Erica Berry.

Since then, a lifetime of striving. Always alone, no groups; - Johannesburg, Durban, London.

Group exhibition, 1999, Teddington, Mddx, England. My paintings stood out among the English water colours - at that time my home sickness led me to painting tropical beaches and lagoons.