Elizabeth Robertson This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. www.campbell-art.com

   www.campbell-art.com/bio2.html - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/11/2007   Last Visited: 4/11/2007

   Born Elizabeth Robertson in a small country town called Queenstown in 1960, this multi-talented, self-taught artist is of farming stock from a region known as the Eastern Cape, settled by English immigrants in the 1820s. After spending her schooldays in the coastal town of East London, where she took art as a subject, Elizabeth went on to complete a three-year graphic design course in Cape Town.
   
   Having always harboured a burning desire to travel,travel she did! Winding up for three years in her favourite place, Israel. There she worked as a graphic designer for the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem in the mid-1980s. Her work covered a range of creative fields, from logo design to stage set painting and costumery to brochure design and layout.
   
   On her return to South Africa, Elizabeth was led by the broad scope of her creative ability to continue to explore a range of mediums and art forms, evident in the varying themes and styles of her work at several collective and three successful solo exhibitions in Cape Town:
   
   For a short time during this period, Elizabeth worked for leading South African book publisher Struik as a designer and illustrator, eventually discovering a skill for illustrative map work and, more quirkily, cartooning. A private commission for three sports calendars (rugby, cricket and golf) led to a steady stream of cartoon work for magazines and journals. ,Cartoon drawing is incredibly taxing, taking enormous concentration and application to capture expression, humour, nuance,, She still derives great pleasure from this unexpected side of her creative ability.
   
   Amongst her most memorable commissions during the 1990s - by leading hotel chain Sun International - were a series of 10 metre-by-metre watercolours showing arum lilies close-up.
   
   Most recently, one of Elizabeth's favourite places to exhibit is at South Africa's most famous botanical garden, Kirstenbosch. It is here at these outstanding exhibits that she has gained her most prestigious clientèle. Charming her admirers by capturing the magnificence of the magical gardens. Her garden and pond collection has lead to the growing prospect of exhibiting in the near future at The Royal Botanical Garden of Edinburgh, Scotland - an invitation she will not miss.
   
   Elizabeth says: ,Without dreams people perish!, and that is why this artist is flourishing as just last year in 2005 one of her dreams came true. She and her husband responded to an irresistible invitation to visit the USA. They were hosted at six wonderfully different venues from wine estates to performing art schools across the country. She also appeared in a television programme in Nevada. The response to her vibrant works was so overwhelming that she has been invited back in 2006 to be one of the guest artists at the annual art fair in Florida called ,Artigras,. Fifteen new works called ,Jewels of Africa, for this exciting art show in February.
   
   This is an artist with plans and many opportunities who prefers not to be bound by a specific style or place. In fact, she prides herself on her versatility and adaptability. ,I,m really what you might term a "commissioned artist",, she says. Elizabeth derives a deep satisfaction from seeing a work she,s produced to spec, as it were, ,fulfill a person,s needs,; a client,s pleasure is her greatest reward.
   
   Ultimately, watercolour was and remains her first love. Limited in scope by the size of paper available, she was driven to explore oil and now relishes producing large - ,the bigger, the better!, - canvases for a seemingly insatiable market.
   
   Favoured themes (for her as well as many satisfied clients) include moody, often dark landscapes, where ,clouds and wild skies, have become, to those familiar with her work, an Elizabeth Robertson Campbell trademark. These powerful works are countered by canvases infused with a wonderful sense of tranquility, particularly in her depictions of gardens or ponds with Khoi, goldfish and lilies. She enjoys the challenge of capturing the ephemeral quality of reflections on and in water, creating a depth of dimension, drawing the viewer into the scene to search for subtle shapes and figures. But probably her greatest love is ,the dust of Africa - I am, after all, a farm girl!, And she captures this in some shimmering works of men, women and cattle floating in golden light.