Peerboomdrif, Watercolour, 43 x 22cm
Watervaldrif die Valle, Watercolour, 49 x 30cm
clouds. I found the aloes particularly beguiling and told my mom if war had to break out, I would come and hide there because if I stood still I would look like an aloe and no one would see me.”
On the easel in his studio is Peach Tree Drift; a palette of rock strata and echoing crags ̶ riggered in raw sienna and Vandyke brown. A lone lorry halts the journey. Subtle greens evoke the shades of sagewood. “The colour of plants need to be desaturated, I temper it significantly with a touch of ivory black applied very discreetly.”
Taking a cue from masters such as J. H. Pierneef and Thinus de Jongh, he enthuses that an artist could spend a lifetime painting scenes along the extraordinary road ‘that crosses the same ravine in twenty five places.’ And so, these drifts became the focus of his latest body of work and forthcoming exhibition. In February 2021 he re-visited Meiringspoort; walking and recording the sixteen kilometres of its folklore and awe ̶ surrendering his craft to nature’s theatre at Dyke Drift, Bushmans Drift and Hiddenravine Drift. This is the stuff of Langenhoven’s imaginative elephant Herrie; a place where the fine sable of brushes dare dream under the gaze of the artist’s salty skies; executed by the quills of his treasured Casaneo brushes.
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He gently taps the surface of the stretched Canson Montval, eliciting the sound of a soft drum. “The midtones are vital; for this I apply greys and dioxidene purple and violet which I sometimes mix into the sky to give it a tinge of depth and realism.” Traversing the artist’s translucent pools, you cross Ghost Drift ̶ ever aware of the cadence of old time folding back and forth through his meticulous tincture. When you reach Waterfall Drift, observe the aloe of Brahm van Zyl’s youth ̶ still as a man carved in stone.
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