Wiehan de Jager

Wiehan de Jager is a contemporary artist, visual-communication designer, illustrator, and lecturer working from his home-based studio in Riebeek Kasteel. Through his work, Wiehan explores the process of mark-making, experimenting with the juxtaposition of traditional media such as collage, painting techniques and printmaking, with the sometimes strict, controlled yet serendipitous digital-illustration processes and artistic expressions. The results are sensitive and detailed, balanced out with bold organic moments.

Wiehan draws inspiration from arid and tactile natural Southern African landscapes, such as the Kgalagadi, the Richtersveld and the Cederberg. He finds these places to be inimitable, spiritual, and complex in their unpretentiousness. Various themes are explored, such as: the abstract interpretation of texture and forms in landscapes; the interaction between nature, man-made objects and environments; and the diarising of divine significance. The expressions are layered, structured, emotive and abstract, as if captured in motion.

Wiehan holds an Honours Degree in Visual Communication and has participated in various group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad.

Artist Statement Volitant / Volatile

There is a lot of planning and thinking that can go into the creation of an artwork. However, in my creation process, the idea is developed very roughly. I then continue to work on it intuitively and exploratively, disciplining myself to not be too precious about the plan, but to let the work set the tone, therefore becoming its own. Through the theme Volitant / Volatile, the processes of dreaming, planning, testing, making, erring, and realigning, are acknowledged as being daunting and uncertain. The excitement lies in the reflection thereafter, to realise the successes and mistakes, the discoveries and disappointments, the growth and ones’ limitations. The work and its generation is afloat, in anticipation, sometimes tense.


There is some semblance of this in life. We also go through the stages of dreaming, planning, testing, making, erring, and realigning. And we realise throughout, how little control we have over things, or how much we can and cannot anticipate, how much we can handle, what breaks us, and what can rebuild us. Where there are a lot of terrifying things happening in us, and around us, the work created for this exhibition is meant to give a sense of hope. That the moments of discomfort and change are overcomable. That getting to know oneself truly, is actually okay. That transformation, however painful it occasionally is, matures and advances us.

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