THIRZA KOTZEN

SKYHIGH (And The Space Between)
5- 28th March 2015

Nature inspires feelings of mysticism and awe in Thirza Kotzen. In SKYHIGH (And the Space Between) she continues an avenue of inquiry begun in her 2012 exhibition The Space Between.

Skyhigh IV, mixed media, 137x 88cm
£7500

With SKYHIGH... she hopes to capture some of the immense wonder that she feels in nature and communicate the spirituality of the forest with characteristically exuberant tones.

She uses elements of the landscape like a musical score. The trees, the fields, the rivers and the flowers are all placed like notes as if the image was a piece of music.When hung together, they perform as an orchestra, with contrasting notes working together to create a lyrical world through which the viewer can wander.

Fernbrella, mixed media, 43 x 47cm
£1950

She explores tensions between contradictory elements in her work, the light and the dark, the off key and the harmony. These components are often produced intuitively with unconscious impulses guiding her hand. 

As with her many previous exhibitions, colour is a vital component of the overall composition. Her use of colour is inspired by her background- they are the vibrant and intense colours that she grew up with in South Africa.

Green and Gnarled, mixed media, 43 x 47cm
£1950

Since moving to Britain she discovered a marked difference in the colour sensibility between South Africa and Northern Europe, remarking that the light in the UK is considerably cooler than the sunshine soaked environments she was used to in South Africa.