NEDBANK 

ART SUITE

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HERE, THERE & FORWARD

Portrait of a Woman within a Landscape

Willie Bester

born 1956

Artwork Details

Artist          Willie Bester 
Title            Portrait of a Woman within a Landscape
Year            2001
Medium      Mixed media (43.5 x 67.5 x 8cm)

About the Artist

Willie Bester (born 1956) is a South African painter, sculptor and assemblage artist born in Montagu in the Western Cape. Largely self-taught, he attended the Community Arts Project in Cape Town in 1986 and developed a distinctive practice using found and recycled materials. He lives and works in Kuils River, Cape Town. His awards and honours include the Cape Triennial Merit Prize in 1991, the Prix de l’Aigle in Nice in 1992, the Order of the Disa in 2004, the Johnnie Walker Artist Award in 2009, and an honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2019.

About this Artwork

Portrait of a Woman within a Landscape brings together portraiture and landscape, suggesting an inseparable relationship between identity and place. The female figure appears in the foreground and looks directly at the viewer, confronting the viewer to acknowledge the rural scene behind them. Here, Bester reinforces the idea that social histories are shaped by the communities and the politics of the landscapes that they inhabit.