Faces of Africa no35 Print

Gerhard Van Vuuren is a South African artist based in Pretoria who has been a full-time artist since 2002, self-taught, who approaches painting as a way of expressing emotion. He is well known for his large-scale contemporary portraits depicting people of Africa. He works in acrylic paint. Gerhard paints by applying abstraction, he creates intense personal moments masterfully created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer. He starts with a title, a meaningful thought or a feeling, around which he then builds his painting, striving for emotional impact. His style is distinctive and the class and character of emotions he employs to describe and document his subjects makes his wonderful work noticeable! The signature is consistent and one we will always associate it with him. Gerhard’s artworks are well received by South Africans as well as the International collector and investor. His paintings directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday people as a starting point. By emphasising aesthetics, he approaches a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer and believes in the idea of beauty following form in a work.