With KLIPWERK I salute the rocks and stones that anchor and define the southern part of Africa, the dry western part where I feel most at home. Their pervasive presence in the semi-desert Karoo landscapes of klipkoppies and far horizons of my childhood has left an indelible mark on my interior landscape.

The title KLIPWERK is borrowed from the great Afrikaans poet N.P. van Wyk Louw. The titles for most of the paintings on exhibition also come from his 'Klipwerk' – a collection of short, earthy poems. Thank you to Antjie Krog for the suggestions.

Rocks don’t blink. They look on, unbothered and unsmiling, when photographed. So from the Tsodilo Hills in the far north of Botswana, the Spitzkoppe in Namibia, Mapungubwe on the Limpopo, to the Richtersveld and Boesmanland down to Postberg and Smitswinkelbaai in the south, I unabashedly stole pictures of them in different seasons and light and carried them home with me. I hope I did them justice when I fixed them with oil paint on cotton canvas.

I dedicate this series of paintings to my friend Linda Rode, with whom I’ve travelled a long way without ever leaving the Western Cape

It was David Goldblatt’s question – “And what about the Karoo?” – that sent me back to the place of my birth and the farm where I grew up.

For considerable time I had felt spooked by the empty, deserted homesteads whenever I drove through the arid landscape. David, who was exceptionally drawn to the Great Karoo and its people, compelled me to ponder why I had felt the urge to explore distant, non-native elements when I started painting about four years earlier. Could it be that I did not feel technically adept to do justice to the familiar, or could I simply not face the inevitable experience of having my near paradisical recollections of growing up in the vast spaces of the Karoo destroyed by confronting the reality of the present?

Eventually, I decided on two series of paintings: deserted farmhouse interiors in large format, and much smaller paintings of the exteriors of some relatively well-preserved old houses in the Karoo town where I first went to school.

Elegie vir die Karoo is dedicated to David Goldblatt with deep appreciation and in loving memory.