Invention and irony: a painting mentorship with Fanie Buys

This intermediate painting mentorship will look at developing a technique and concept through interaction with found images and taking inspiration from everyday life. The mentorship incorporates elements of play and humour within the technical exercises. The weekly sessions will help you to explore new sources of inspiration and methods for engaging with your practice.

Suggested Materials List: 

Ideally the course would focus on working with what you have, but for some of the earlier exercises the below are recommended. The focus of the course is that you use this list as a guideline.

• 1 x A3 pad canvas or oil painting paper (or primed surface)
• Oil paints: warm+cool primaries, and titanium white
• Liquin for drying
• Solvent for cleaning
• Baby oil for brushes
• Selection of round and flat hog brushes. (prime art 0000 round a favourite)

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Fanie Buys is a South African artist currently based in London. Buys works in a figurative style considering the role of traditional portraiture in contemporary society. Using found images, AI, and unconventional subject matter: Buys considers the act of painting as a performative meditation to realise hidden, often tongue-in-cheek, meaning. Erudite, verbose, but always witty, Buys’ work is a developing practice considering himself as an artist juxtaposed against a critical disdain of people who put that in their artist’s statements.

Buys was a co-recipient of the Judy Steinberg Award for Painting and the Simon Gerson Award for an exceptional body of work. Buys has been included in several group shows and has mounted several solo presentations, namely: Miss in 2021 and Happy Birthday Jesus! in 2019 (both at 99 Loop gallery in Cape Town).