Andrea
du Plessis (born 1980) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Cape Town,
specializing primarily in traditional oil painting. She has studied Fine Arts
at the University of Pretoria, completed a postgraduate diploma in Art Therapy
in the UK, as well as a degree in Multimedia Digital Visual Arts through UNISA
(Cum Laude). As the overall winner of the prestigious Sasol New
Signatures award in 2021, she showcased her first solo exhibition at the
Pretoria Art Museum in 2022.
Du
Plessis revisits antiquity through her use of traditional oil painting
techniques used by the old masters while experimenting with ways of bringing
her work to life with the use of modern technologies such as augmented reality
(AR) and virtual reality (VR). Known for her detailed landscapes and organic
hybridity, she aims to create immersive experiences that momentarily transport
the viewer to a familiar yet alien world, while offering an opportunity to
reflect on their connection with nature.
Describing
herself as a pantheist, Andrea du Plessis uses her practice as a means of
exploring nature as a catalyst for the sublime experience. Inspired by
eighteenth century Romanticism and painters such as Caspar David Friedrich she
aims to portray nature as a sacred source of healing, using hybrid organic
forms and psychedelia to emphasize interconnectivity amongst species in the
natural world.
