So Much More than Just a Snowy Lanscape

So looking at this painting straight up it just looks like a snowy landscape (looked at from above), you can't really make up any extreme detail. The awesome thing about big paintings is that their is always a lot of space for extreme details, details that sometimes the eye will miss if it's looked at quickly without zooming in and really LOOKING at it. Once you really LOOK at it - it's like magic. 

This piece is the third in my white painting series. It consists of a layer of newsprint and tracing paper covered with layers of green, blue and yellowish whites and also white acrylic paint mixed with varnish - gloss and matt. It has lots of tiny little cracks in certain places which bring out a certain amount of character in this painterly landscape. It is my last painting of 2012 and my third year of BA Fine Arts.

San-Marí van Wyk, So Much More than Just a Snowy Landscape, 2012.
Mixed Media on Canvas, 190 x 190 cm.

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"Skoon"

This is the second piece in my white painting series, except it has no paint, only different types of paper. I used tracing paper, crepe paper, newsprint and cellophane that I covered in cold glue and stuck to the canvas. When using tracing paper in the first layer of my previous painting "Glacier", I fell in love with the way it dries after it has been covered in cold glue and I actually felt a little sad that I had to paint over it. The pearly effect it gave made me really want to do an artwork consisting mostly if not completely out of tracing paper stuck on canvas - and that is how this artwork came to be. I added the other white or see-through materials so I could juxtapose different shades of white to give the painting more depth.

"Skoon" means "clean" in Afrikaans, but in terms of the word "skoonheid" it mean "beauty". It got its pearly effect from the tracing paper that it is mostly made up of and this pearly effect made me think of a fresh, clean and pure beauty. My mom keeps on saying it reminds her of a wedding dress, which I can't argue with, haha. So that's how I came up with the name, it's in Afrikaans because I just couldn't find a fitting word in English that gave me the same feeling as "skoon" did.  

San-Marí van Wyk, "Skoon", 2012. Mixed Media on Canvas, 190 x 190 cm.

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Glacier

This painting is the first of a series of three white paintings that I made. Again I played with the idea of texture underneath the paint by pasting newsprint and also tracing paper on to the canvas, except this time i added an extra element - Pollyfilla. I used the Pollyfilla to create swirling patterns adding extra texture to my landscape. I think Pollyfilla is a great alternative way to make texture in paintings but it makes the painting heavy. The acrylic paint mixed with varnish created very interesting intricate patterns which one can only truly appreciate when looking at the artwork closely. It was really fun working with the different elements in this artwork and I was really pleased with the end result. What do you think?

San-Marí van Wyk, Glacier, 2012. Mixed Media on Canvas, 190 x 190 cm.

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Untitled Landscape

This painting reminded my lecturer of an aerial view of a landscape, hence the title Untitled Landscape. This was highly due to the texture I created underneath by pasting down newsprint that I covered in cold glue. I also mixed the acrylic paint with varnish which made it flow very freely so I dripped the paint over each other - with the canvas on the floor - which caused them to flow into one another in very interesting patterns. These unplanned little details that the paint does all by itself without he artist planning it, is what I love the most about paint. And I really love paint, I get so excited when I am surrounded by paint and I have an empty canvas ready to be filled with whatever I want... When I'm painting I love how sometimes all I need to do is give it the slightest of shoves to ultimately expose the paint's true amazing qualities.

San-Marí van Wyk, Untitled Landscape, 2012.
 Mixed Media on Canvas, 190 x 190 cm.

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I'm still on holiday now visiting my boyfriend's family but as soon as I get home I'm going to fix up my new studio space back at my Dad's house. I'm super excited about it, I just want to start painting again! I'm thinking of calling it "San-Marí van Wyk Artist Studios", and one day when I have a house of my own I will move it there and it will be big and people will be able to come by and check out my work and I'll have art classes there for kids because I think it is vitally important to nurture a love of art in children, to put that burning desire to create in them so they can grow up to change the world with their art. More so, so that their lives will be transformed for the better. I am excited about the future, I kind of can't wait for it to begin. It begins with the renovation of my studio. I can't wait. 

This is another artwork I produced in my third year of my BA Fine Arts degree in 2012, it was an experiment to create texture in an alternative way to actual paint. I used a lot of different materials including Masking tape, newsprint, acrylic paint, spray paint and powder paint, actually nearly any and all red paint I could get my hands on. As I applied the layers one after I got my hands truly dirty and that took me back to the feeling of being a child and art being about pure creation in the messiest and most fun of ways. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces as it was a ton of fun making it.  Also, I especially like how it cracked, I don't know why but I love cracks in paintings. Cracks bring another element to a painting, one you have no control over, and I love that about painting.  

San-Marí van Wyk, Red like the Colour of your Heart, 2012.
Mixed Media on Canvas, 190 x 190 cm.


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Hi kind strangers whom I do not know yet, I am a newly graduated emerging professional fine artist and this is a blog about my art. Feel free to follow it and see how my art progresses as I officially become part of this crazy art world. First things first I am going to post about my favorite pieces I did in the last year and a half, then as I complete new pieces this year (2014) I will start adding posts about them too. To give some insight into the work that goes into these pieces I will post progress images from time to time. I recently finished my BA Fine Arts degree in 2013 and I am very excited to start sharing my work to the world, so a warm welcome to all of you who came to check it out.

This is the first own choice artwork I did in 2012 during the third year of my BA Fine Arts degree. It recently became my first artwork sold through the State of the Art Online gallery, you can check out more work of mine for sale at www.stateoftheart.co.za/art-by-san-mar%C3%AD-van-wyk/151

San-Marí van Wyk, Freedom in the Strokes, 2012.
Oil on Canvas, 190 x 190 cm.

Details of Freedom in the Strokes: