We’re getting to know Anneen Bezuidenhout – her very original drawing won our Boats Challenge and we asked her a few questions.
Anneen grew up in Port Elizabeth and still calls the windy city home.
“Growing up my mom taught me a lot about art as she is an artist herself. I remember being very impressed with myself in grade 1 when I could draw an eye in an oval shape while all my friends were still drawing round eyes – such an art snob!
My interest in art started from quite a young age and filtered through into High School where I was fortunate enough to take art as a subject.
I wish life was simple and I just followed my heart, but life is such… So, after school, I studied Psychology and while completing my Honours Degree I quickly realised that while I enjoyed understanding people, counselling was not my thing.
Not knowing my next step, I enrolled into a jewellery manufacturing course, and through this journey I realized I wanted to study art.
I started working at Montage Gallery and studying through Unisa and completed my Visual Arts degree in 2016.
In 2017 I completed my PGCE and have been teaching high school art since 2018.
My home is wherever my husband is – we live in Central with our three dogs in a historic house which we love. It’s great since he works from home as an architect, while I go to school to teach.”
While studying Anneen’s Instagram feed I noticed a lot of deeply contrasting work in monochrome, but also some work in colour.
“I have fallen in love with shadows and nuances of charcoals and grey. While I love colour, especially strong colour (please no pastel colours!), I feel inspired and drawn to monochrome work at the moment.
There is something about the fleetingness of monochrome and contrasting works that reminds me of ‘memory’ – something we try to capture but that seems blurred around the edges.”
Anneen seems to often do works that almost seem like studies – with a lot of focus on a specific object in detail or close-up.
“Throughout my Visual Arts studies I, ironically, almost forgot that drawing with pencil is a thing. I found myself caught up in conceptual works which was immensely satisfying, however I only recently found myself back to doing observational drawings.
There is something therapeutic about it – the ‘simple’ act of observing and drawing with pencil; the scratch on the paper and satisfaction when your 2D surface started coming into the 3D world.
Recently I have started to explore transforming studies of objects or people with more of a surrealistic imagery… hence ‘the storm keeper’ (probably a good example of what I am trying to explain).
I love Anneen’s portraits – so I ask about her favourite subjects and inspiration and Anneen quickly admits she really enjoys drawing old people!
“All the crinkles and folds that create lovely shadows and textures. Recently I started focusing on drawing family portraits. It’s nice drawing people you know and love.
I often observe something in nature while we are on a road trip, or even afterwards while going through our photographs, that I find is a metaphor for something I might be experiencing. This is then often the basis for what I want to create. It goes both ways – an idea could spark an artwork or a photograph could spark an idea.”
“My favourite medium is pencil! The verdict is still out on exactly which brand… But recently I have learned to absolutely love charcoal and graphite powder!”
We all have amazing A-ha moments – and often in stark contrast to the really low moments when we want to give up. I enjoy getting the perspective on these moments from different artists.
“I think one of the biggest challenges I have found is finding my own voice – or style – that thing that gets me ticking. After studying and being so busy teaching, I hardly found time to develop my own art.
A breakthrough moment was definitely when I committed to doing Inktober a few years ago – the challenge of using a prompt every day to just do SOMETHING really sparked my creative juices. It took the pressure of having to create a masterpiece away and suddenly I could just create. Realistically, expressively or just surrealistically.
Failing often and learning from it was more beneficial than creating one perfect artwork. This, paired with sticking with what I enjoy doing, and getting myself to find platforms to push myself really helped.
Finding the Drawing Guild platform has also inspired me to push into drawing which sparked the recent artworks. So grateful to you guys!”
Last but not least – we need to know who Anneen’s favourite artist is!
She laughs as she complains about having to choose just one!
“Well, I really enjoy the way William Kentridge transforms his charcoal drawings into films. His creativity in working between modes of working is astounding.
David Griessel’s fantasy drawings are incredible.
Dumile Feni’s expressive drawings give me the feels.
And then I also really enjoy children’s book illustrations, so someone who has inspired me tremendously is Alida Bothma.”
So much for just one Anneen! It was an impossible question!
Thank you for giving us a little insight into your inspiration and journey. We cannot wait to see your next submissions!
- @anneenbez
