Anina Deetlefs: The Architecture of Quiet Things | Seeing Beauty in the Unseen
In this conversation, I speak with South African artist Anina Deetlefs about her latest body of work, The Architecture of Quiet Things, presented at Art@Africa Gallery in Cape Town.
Anina has spent many years painting flowers. But while looking more closely at the flowers she was painting, she discovered another world hidden within them. Beneath their familiar beauty is an intricate universe of cells, structures and processes that we rarely see or even think about.
This discovery became the starting point for a completely new body of work.
Anina talks about how humbling it is to realise just how much is happening at a cellular level, quietly sustaining life all around us. Her paintings invite us to slow down and look again, revealing beauty in the things that normally remain invisible to us.
We also talk about moss, one of the most easily overlooked plants in our environment. Anina’s curiosity led her to explore the science and extraordinary qualities of these tiny organisms, and then to translate what she discovered into art. I love the way she allows research and curiosity to open new doors in her artistic practice.
Our conversation also moves beyond her current exhibition. We talk about the importance of the arts in education and about how meaningful it is for Anina to hear from art students who have been inspired by her work. For her, being an artist is not simply about creating paintings. It is also about continuing to learn, to question, to grow and, perhaps, to inspire someone else along the way.
I love Anina’s work, but I also love the way she looks at the world. There is a wonderful sense of curiosity in her artistic outlook and a real belief in her own growth as an artist. She is not afraid to explore something new, to follow a question, to learn about the science behind what she sees and then transform that knowledge into something deeply visual and poetic.
This conversation reminded me once again that artists often help us see the world differently. Sometimes they simply draw our attention to something that has been there all along.
And sometimes, they show us the worlds that exist just beyond what our eyes can see.
Every artist has a story worth hearing.
https://aninadeetlefs.com
https://www.artatafrica.art/?srsltid=AU7gw4V564ixANdfbuWCRrbVWwCm2qxJ5j-fR1rHXzIv7VtYa-pg3gGp
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