Platteland Artist with International Persona - Interview with S

"In my teens making art was a way of finding a voice and a safe place in an environment where I felt both foreign and different." Shui-Lyn's answer when I asked her about how she started to paint.

Intelligent, savvy and sharp - I know there will never be a moment where I understand enough about this artist. I asked her a few questions.

PP; Where were you born?

SLW; In Ibadan, Nigeria.

PP; Where did you grow up

SLW; On a sugar plantation in Kwara State, near a small town called Jebba

PP; Where did you study?

SLW; I was home-schooled while on the plantation and then went to a prep school in the south of England where I completed my secondary education. After that I travelled.

PP; How did your passion for arts start?

SLW; My parents loved collecting art so there was that exposure and appreciation for art from an early age. But my passion started when I was first handed a pencil and piece of paper and told to draw! I was a small child, I wasn’t even walking, and I was bored. So my parents put a pencil in my hand and said, “Draw that!” Later, in my teens making art was a way of finding a voice and a safe place in an environment where I felt both foreign and different. But it also gave me a way to pursue my curiosity about life, engage with my interests, to ask uncomfortable questions, seek out answers and explore new ideas. In the end, making art is a way of life…of being.

PP; Why did you buy in Porterville?

SLW; There was a house with an amazing view of the mountains…Plus, it is a working town and I liked that about it - there’s something real about it. It’s an hour and a half from Cape Town and that accessibility not to mention affordability at the time because it is getting ‘discovered’ made it a perfect place to establish another home and studio.

PP; What is your feel on SA art?

SLW; I think it is a great place to make art because it’s not a country where one can get complacent. People are far more engaged in what is going on around them, far more aware of the societal issues that surround them and that really creates artists that are motivated to add their voice to the debate about what matters in developing a society. It has given rise to so many great artists such as Kentridge, Siopsis and Dumas, Mason and Catherine, Jane Alexander, Jackson Hlungwani and Gerard Sekoto. Today we have some incredible young artists such as Athi Patra-Ruga and Dineo Sheshee Bopape. South Africa is a wonderful fertile ground for art!

PP; What influences your art?

SLW; Mostly I’m influenced by ideas. Due my personal background, I have an interest in exploring the role of belonging in the development and destruction of identity. A lot of what influences my thinking and image-making comes from writers like Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, Kazuo Ishiguro, Murakami…the list is very long. Then there are the poets especially T.S. Eliot, Pound Baudelaire and Pablo Neruda. Then there’s also Francis Bacon and Anthony Gormley – I really like the way they both think. Ultimately though, the desire to make art is rooted in a deep curiosity to investigate things, to question everything, to come up with new ways of being.

PP; Do you have any upcoming exhibitions?

SLW; I am taking part by invitation in the Royal Society for Printmakers Masters Exhibition in November this year at the Bankside Gallery in London. Before that I am participating with other artists at shows in Tulbagh and Porterville. Next year in February I have a solo exhibition at the Rust-en-Vrede Gallery in Durbanville. All of which I am very excited about!

PP; Where can your work be seen?

SLW; At my studios in Cape Town and Porterville by appointment, and at the Manz Art Gallery in Franshhoek.

Shui, We wish you only joy and prosperity. May the Platteland keep filling you with inspiration.