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About The Artist

Artist Photo

Artist Biography

Heidi Fourie, born in 24 August 1990 in Pretoria, completed her BA Fine Arts (cum laude) in 2012 at the University of Pretoria, specialising in painting, where she received the Bettie Cilliers Barnard bursary for Fine Arts. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions, mainly in Pretoria and Johannesburg and has also been a finalist in Sasol New Signatures (2011, 2013, 2014), ABSA L’Atelier (2013(top 10), 2014), Thami Mnyele Fine Art Awards (2012, 2013) and SPI Portrait Awards (2013). She was chosen as the 2014 mentee by Lizamore & Associates Gallery in Johannesburg with Frikkie Eksteen as her mentor. She held her first solo exhibition at the gallery in March 2015. She is currently working as a full-time fine artist.

Artist Statement

My preferred medium is painting, but my work most often contains a sculptural or video element. Although I tend to paint in a realistic painterly manner, I constantly rethink the notion of “The painting” and the limitations of the medium. I believe paint can reveal meaning in the seemingly meaningless, and value in the valueless.

I am fascinated by the fine balance between control, and uncontrollability, order and chaos, and figuration and its negation that comes into play when painting an image. I often reinvestigate and reinterpret the tradition of genre painting and my work often consists of multiple smaller fragments as opposed to single monumental pieces. Rather than competing with photography in order to create hyper realistic paintings, I explore and embrace painting’s own inherent language and marks.

My subject matter is usually of a mundane, everyday and familiar nature. The scenes and objects which I paint, evoke a sense of familiarity in most viewers as it is taken from most-travelled paths, everyday routines and objects or backgrounds of well-known film scenes.

I recently started to investigate the animation possibilities of painting. Fragmenting a video into frames, and painting each frame separately, is a tedious and primitive method of animation, although it results in a series of metamorphic paintings with interesting repetition and subtle changes, and a hypnotic and visually dynamic film. It reveals the sleight of hand of the painter, and allows the viewer to mentally fill the gaps between the painted frames as they reel on the screen. This approach allows me to create three dimensional and moving portraits, non-still still lives and rhythmic movements and cycles.

Artist CV

Education

  • 2012: BA Fine Arts (cum laude), University of Pretoria

    Awards

    2012:

  • Bettie Cilliers Barnard Award, presented by the University of Pretoria

    2013:

  • ABSA L’Atelier Top 10
  • SPI Portrait awards Top 40

    2014:

  • Lizamore & Associates 2014 Mentorship Program
  • For the Love of Art Merit Award
  • Fried Autumn Art Fair top 8

    2015:

  • For the Love of Art Under 25 Award

    Solo Exhibitions

    2015:

  • Monoprints, Trent Gallery, Pretoria
  • Islands, Lizamore & Associates Gallery, Johannesburg

    Selected Group Exhibitions

    2011:

  • Sasol New Signatures Finalist Exhibition, Pretoria Art Museum

    2012:

  • Thami Mnyele Finalist Exhibition, Ekhuruleni
  • Copulative Print Exhibition, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
  • Exhibit A, Graduate exhibition, University of Pretoria

    2013:

  • Figuration and Negation, Fried Contemporary Gallery, Pretoria
  • Tom Waits for no man, curated by Gordon Froud, UJ Gallery, Grande Provence Gallery
  • Miniatures, Long Street Art Lovers, Pretoria
  • ABSA L'Atelier finalist exhibition, ABSA Gallery Johannesburg
  • Afrikaner Erfenis, Trent Gallery, Pretoria
  • Sasol New Signatures finalist exhibition, Pretoria Art Museum
  • Alice in Wonderland, curated by Gordon Froud, Long Street Art Lovers, Pretoria
  • SPI Portrait Awards finalist (top 40) exhibition, Rust-en-Vrede Gallery, Durbanville
  • Diptych, Assemblage, Johannesburg
  • Thami Mnyele Finalist Exhibition, Ekhuruleni
  • Sculptors@Fried, Fried Contemporary Gallery, Pretoria
  • 168 Hours, Aardklop Fringe, Potchesfstroom
  • New Voices II, Artspace JHB

    2014:

  • Nako at work, exhibition with Malose Pete, Trent Gallery, Pretoria
  • Joburg Joburg exhibition, Cornerhouse Rooftop, Johannesburg
  • Last Meal, Trent Gallery, Pretoria
  • Nomad Bodies, curated by Prof. Elfriede Dreyer, Wintertuin Gallery, Royal Academy of Fine Arts; and Fried Contemporary Gallery, Pretoria
  • Artesis University College, Antwerp.
  • Post Colonial Africa,curated by Paul Bayliss ABSA KKNK, Oudtshoorn
  • ABSA L'Atelier regional exhibition, Pretoria Arts Association
  • Point of Departure, Lizamore & Associates, Johannesburg
  • Concurrere, Kievits Kroon, Pretoria
  • Showcase III, Bayliss Gallery, Johannesburg.
  • ABSA L.Atelier finalist exhibition, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg.
  • Turbine Art Fair, Lizamore & Associates booth, Tubine Hall, Johannesburg.
  • Visual Encounters, University of Pretoria staff exhibition, Rautenbach Hall, Pretoria.
  • Sasol New Signatures finalist exhibition, Pretoria Art Museum
  • Eye Tunes, Aardklop fringe, Snowflake building, Potchefstroom, 4 October.
  • Monoprints - 4 Artists": Olaf Bisschoff, Bronwyn Findlay, Heidi Fourie and Louis Olivier, Trent Gallery, Pretoria.

    2015:

  • Heidi Fourie, Oliver Mayhew and Banele Khoza, Trent Gallery, Pretoria
  • Art Lovers 1939 Art Competition, Pretoria
  • Fetish, ArtEC, Port Elizabeth (upcoming)
  • Paint it Black, Salon 91, Cape Town (upcoming)
  • Not a Portrait, Rust-en-Vrede, Cape town (upcoming)
  • Seven Roots, Trent gallery, Pretoria (upcoming)

    Commissions and Employment

  • 2010: Part of Fountains Circle Beautification project team.
  • 2012: Jacaranda Brick Bench, University of Pretoria campus.
  • 2012 – 2013: Assisted David Krut Projects with Wlliam Kentridge linoleum carving.
  • 2014: Part Time painting lecturer, University of Pretoria
    Painted a mural at Workhorse Bronze Foundry, Johannesburg


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