Thelma Van Rensburg

Van Rensburg born in 1969, was a creatively gifted child who loved to draw, act in
plays and create things from discarded materials such as building furniture from
plastic waste and matchboxes for her dolls. After being blocked from her creativity
for many years by a parent, a year as a kindergarten teacher in 1999 in Taiwan
rekindled her love for artistic expression and her connection to her creativity.
In 2003 she started studying art full time at Thswane University of Technology and
received her BTech degree in Fine Arts in 2008. In 2016 she completed a Masters
degree in Fine Arts at the University of Pretoria. She was accepted as a PhD
candidate at Plymouth University in 2017 and completed three artist residencies in
Berlin and Mexico through Transart Creative Practice in collaboration with Plymouth
University in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
Alongside her art practice Van Rensburg has an in depth knowledge of psychology
having completed an Honorers degree in psychology at the University of South Africa
in 2000. She continually researches topics related to Narcissistic abuse, childhood
trauma, inner child healing and Jung’s theories on the subconscious and the shadow

Through inner child drawings. fairy tales and collage I ...

Witbank Technical High School '87

University of Pretoria
Contemporary discourses

University of Pretoria '91
Anatomy
Human movement studies
English

1990 Ba. Human movement studies-University of Pretoria.
1992 Ba. Hons. Recreation – University of Pretoria.
2000 Ba. Hons Physcology- UNISA.
2007 Btech. Fine Arts- Thswane University of Technology.
Dissertation completed cum laude.
2013 4th Year Visual Arts, University of Pretoria.
Completed cum laude.
2015 Currently enrolled for a Master of Arts degree at the University of Pretoria.

2025: April: Burn the script, Collage and drawings, Long street Art Lovers, online, Pretoria
August: Confessions of the Inner child, embroidery, collage and drawings, The
Viewing room Gallery, Pretoria
2024: November: Shattering secrets: Not just another Fairy Tale, Long street Art
Lovers, online, Pretoria
2022: December: Homecoming of the inner child, Exhibition of mixed media works
on paper and soft sculptures, Johann van Heerden gallery, Pretoria. July: Expressions of the Inner child, water colour on paper, Trent gallery, Pretoria. 2021: I exist in multiples, Exhibition of digital art on paper, Lizamore and associates
gallery, Johannesburg. Childs play for misfits, online exhibition, watercolour portraits, Lonstreet Art Lovers, Pretoria. The Grotesquerie of trauma, Exhibition of oil paintings and digital work, Longstreet
Art Lovers, Pretoria
2020: The haunting of the never recovered pieces, Exhibition of digitally
manipulated paintings, Longstreet Art Lovers, Pretoria
2018: The allure of the unruly. Black Box exhibition, Pretoria Arts Association. 2017: Surface Allure/ Concealed decay, Art Lovers, Pretoria
2016: Uneasy Bodies: Femininity and death. St Lorient fashion and Art gallery, Pretoria. November: Shut up and be still: MFA...