About The Artist

Raymond John Westraadt – (1961 - ) Port Elizabeth Technikon; 1980 Foundation Studies Further training; 2006 Dumisane Mabaso (print making) 2007 Pieter Janse van Rensburg (painting) Exhibitions; Lavender Barn; 2002 (joint with Frans Boekkooi and Rick Becker) Nieu Bethesda 2005 Fugard Festival The Coral Tree 2006 Joint with Dumisane Mabaso Chocolat Art 2007 – 2012 Graaff-Reinet Nieu Bethesda 2010 “The Road less travelled” (Joint) Chocolat Art 2012 to current – Port Elizabeth KKNK 2012 Oudtshoorn (solo) NAF Grahamstown 2013 (joint with Mishak Masuku) State of the Art 2014 (Cape Town – online) GFI (Ron Belling) 2014 Port Elizabeth Cuyler Street Gallery 2014 Port Elizabeth (joint) NAF Grahamstown 2014 “abandonment” (solo) William Humphreys 2015 “memories of the inevitable” (solo) NAF Grahamstown 2015 “memories of the inevitable II” (solo) Nieu Bethesda 2015 Karoo Modern (joint) Germany 2015 Certificate of Excellence 2015 – Palm Art. NAF Grahamstown 2016 “Anthropology of Tractors” Art Compass 2016 2016 International Book Listing – Europe & USA L.E.A.D Firefly 2016 International Listing (Firefly Innovations Art) Who’s Who in Visual Art 2017 2017 International Book Listing – Europe & USA Artist Statement; (March 2014) “Having been exposed to and growing up with the slow and painful dismantling of an entire way of life by a system seeking progress, I began to understand the careless brutality of the human race. We have become a moving mass, so easy to dispose of things and this reaches down into our very core, even the shelter we call home. South End, Port Elizabeth (up to 1969) was my birthplace and the systematic destruction of this neighbourhood in the name of progress has a great influence on the way I work and the images I produce. My way of protesting this action is to try and prick the conscience of people by exposing them to that which looks and feels familiar, that which we grew up with – the old way of life when things seemed somewhat simpler. The images I paint reflect an attitude rather than an image, abandonment and despair, but with reference to hope albeit only in our minds-eye. The starkness of the object in a desolate background will serve as an intense focus on the story behind the lives that drifted through these buildings and vehicles and not so much as the object itself. Although the buildings, cars and tractors are devoid of life the observer is left to draw their own conclusions as to the many stories that the image may evoke in them.” The images may have been born out of my intense appreciation of Surrealism, but the simple approach adopted by artist such as Edward Hopper is a constant driving force in my work.