Johannesburg-based Dorothy Clark, renowned for her oil on canvas works featuring trees, plants, bushes and succulents, recently completed eight artworks during a month-long residence at the Vergelegen wine estate in Somerset West.
According to Vergelegen, Ms Clark was based in a cottage in the heart of the gardens. Here she had the rare privilege of devoting herself fully to capturing the essence of this provincial heritage site.
Inspired to paint from 6.30 in the morning until 10pm at night, her subject matter included portrayals of a hollow old English oak, about 300 years old, believed to be the oldest living oak in Africa.
There is also the Royal Oak, planted in 1928, a descendant of King Alfred’s oak trees at Blenheim Palace in England. Ms Clark’s portrayal of this oak has a pink cloud in the background, as a fire was raging in the Helderberg at the time.
The enormous camphor trees (Cinnamomum Camphora) in front of the homestead, proclaimed national monuments in 1942 was another source of inspiration to the South African artist.
Additional paintings include the camphor tree forest, the former wine cellar now used as a library, and the cottage of the resident horticulturist.
“I see trees as sentinels and custodians, and always paint an individual portrait of a particular tree, not a generic,” says the Port Elizabeth-born artist, who fell in love with nature while raised in Zambia and schooled in Zimbabwe.
“Trees have seen it all, they don’t care who comes and goes.”
Her art training took place at Rhodes University in Grahamstown where she obtained an MA in Fine Arts, graduating in 1974.
At the start of her career, she trained a team of Zimbabwean painters and collaborated with leading interior designers for 25 years, before devoting herself to the easel and nature paintings. Her favourite tree is the classic, flat-topped paperback thorn (Acacia Sieberiana) which she “paints obsessively – you can recognise a silhouette from 50 metres.”
Ms Clark found that, at Vergelegen, “everybody who walked past the studio had a story to tell.” Her enthusiasm for the estate spills over as she describes memorable events such as an owl perched on the cottage garden wall, the music of a swing band playing at a summer gala, and the dress rehearsal of the RMB Starlight Classics, held on the Great Lawn.
Her visit was organised by Vergelegen managing director Wayne Coetzer, who was eager to document the estate’s magnificent trees.
Megan Scott, the art and visual assets curator for Anglo American, which owns Vergelegen, travelled to the estate and agreed that “we need renderings that show the trees’ spirit, their essence.”
She had met Ms Clark at her first solo exhibition of trees and plants at the In Toto Gallery in Johannesburg, and Ms Scott had a “lightbulb moment” when she realised that the artist would be the perfect artist to capture the beauty of Vergelegen.
The public can view the artworks, as the paintings are now on display, and for sale, at Vergelegen’s Café Fleur restaurant in Somerset West.
