Herman Pekel – Nature from Memory

Come and view the latest collection of artworks by Herman Pekel – 'Nature from Memory' inspired by times spent down south. The official opening is at 10:30 Saturday 8th February and all are welcome to join us for juice and morning tea.

Pekel’s paintings strive for immediate and lasting visceral impact, sought with the use of rich and harmonious tones. Attention is paid to detail but not to the extent that all of the oxygen is sucked from the painting. In the hands of a lesser artist, or illustrator, there can be a temptation to make an image extraordinary and graphically tight. Pekel shows restraint in the opposite direction, by preserving the energy associated with a paintings creation, and sometimes mischievously leaving clues indicating how it was made.

At their best, they achieve a potent sense of place, not only because of the artist’s intimate knowledge of his subject matter, but also because a degree of mystery and memory is deliberately embedded. If the viewer has memories of the same locations, they cannot help but meet the artist’s at some halfway point.