Peoplescapes: Untitled Conversations
September 14, 2025 - October 13, 2025
RK Contemporary 32 Main Street Riebeek Kasteel
As renowned South African artist Andre van Vuuren prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday, an exhibition of a new body of work opens at RK Contemporary in Riebeek Kasteel, Western Cape, on 14 September 2025.
His subject matter is, quite simply, people – rendered not through traditional portraiture, but through bold, expressive works that blur the line between representation and abstraction, speaking to collective emotional landscapes – bold, raw and deeply human.
Recurring across the exhibition is a pared-back palette of red, white and blue-black. These colours are not symbolic in any literal sense, but rather are emotional indicators – carriers of feeling, resonance and rhythm. Purposely untitled, each visceral and deeply emotional work invites viewers into a tactile dialogue, encouraging their own interpretations.
Grounded in a semi-abstract, expressionist approach that leans towards full abstraction, the works, created in oil on canvas or paper, show an evolution shaped by both time and place. An attendee of the Johannesburg Art School in the 1960s, he completed his education at the Visual Arts Research School, and began painting full-time in 1983.
A turning point came in 2009, when he moved to the small village of Riebeek Kasteel, a change that marked a shift inward: ‘When I got to Riebeek, I really started understanding paint – and what I wanted to say,’ he explains. ‘I became more comfortable in my own thoughts.’
Despite this introspection, however, his art is never about isolation. During a lifetime of artistic inquiry, in a career that continues to evolve, provoke and connect, Andre has worked to capture the essence of humanity. To this end, painting is an instinctive act for him: ‘I work very quickly. I go flat-out. The idea I have one day might not be there the next, so I get the bones down immediately.’
Andre’s paintings are held in private collections across the world, from the United States to Germany and France.
