Featured Artists
Each month an artist is featured in the local press

February 2023 Peter Croxon
Peter Croxon was born in Springs and matriculated from King Edward VII school in Johannesburg, with Art as one of his strongest subjects.
He spent much of his youth in a small mining village called Sheba. Living in the Lowveld had an important influence on his love of painting the indigenous bush, mountains, light and mists.
Peter graduated as an architect from Witwatersrand University in 1961. Architecture gave him a firm foundation for his enjoyment of space and light. He enjoyed the presentation of sketch plans, internal and external perspectives and ‘selling ideas’ drawings.
Whilst living in Durban he was tutored in the studios of: Pascale Chandler in oils; Barbara Siedle in watercolour; Dee Donaldson and Grace Kotze in oils; and the Garrett Group in Westville, a group of about twenty dedicated artists who gathered once a week to draw. He says that all four groups were run by talented artists, who possessed great vision.

March 2023 Louise Rash
Louise Rash has no formal art education and, nor qualification. She stitches together snippets and snatches she gleans from numerous workshops into her non-representational watercolours and fabric art, her crochet work and her gardening.
She currently teaches academic writing and English literature online at a university in far north-eastern China, and enjoys learning about the diversity of cultures on the Asian continent.
Art is a continuous journey of exploration for Rash. In her sketch book, Journeying through Landscapes, she explores a time of transitions in her artwork: a transition to Amber Valley and KZN Midlands landscapes, an acceptance of decreased mobility, and to seeing whatever landscape she can access as a potential art reference. For her, the resolution lies in a transition towards increasing abstraction.
Realistic paintings generally attempt to replicate or represent nature’s beauty and harmony, and depend on a particular scene as a starting point to copy. Abstract landscapes rely less on a starting point and explore unknown territories. However, they do depend on an understanding of line, composition, shape, colour and tonal contrasts. Rash mainly uses watercolours, which flow in unexpected directions, adding a further dimension to abstraction.

April 2023 Jennifer Miles
Jenny Miles grew up in East London, where she matriculated at Clarendon High School. A wonderful teacher, Miss Rose-Innes, inspired her interest in art and set her on her path of creativity. She also attended art classes with Jack Lugg at the East London Technical College.
Miles earned pocket money by painting horses on tiles for family and friends. While training as a Medical Technologist she met her husband to be, Hollis.
In 1980 the family moved to Johannesburg. On retiring, Miles began to renew her interest in art. She visited the Jeu de Paume Gallery located near the Place de la Concorde in Paris (this gallery was used from 1940 to 1944 to store Nazi art plunder). On this visit she became inspired by the Impressionists. She joined a small art studio in Northcliff, where she was introduced to oil painting by Revan Bos. Her aspirations of imitating the Impressionists were forgotten, as her paintings leaned towards realism.
When her husband retired, they moved to Howick where she attended a short course given by Liz Speight. This ignited her passion for oil painting. She joined HARTS and began exhibiting her oil paintings.

Miles is a member of MOPS (Midlands Outdoor Painting and Sketching ) and relaxes by painting in our spectacular Midlands.

May 2023 Paul Murray
Paul Murray was born in Pietermaritzburg. He went to Alexandra High school.
At seven years old, his first inspiration was his father, who was an amazing pencil artist, and while sitting with his mother – who was sewing –he would practise drawing the ‘drawn models’ found on the old pattern packets.
Murray has integrated his experiences from travelling around South Africa and Africa into his work as an extension of himself, expressing the passion compassion he has for wildlife and the understanding of the animals and scenery that he paints. His work is not an attempt at photo-realistic art, but a synergy of what each piece requires, making it a reflection of how he perceives his subject.
Having stopped painting for about three years, he reverted to pencil drawing in an attempt to hone his fine detail work, his final drawings sometimes taking an exceedingly long time!
He moved back to the Kwazulu-Natal Midlands and then set out to bring that fine work back into his oil paintings, he uses his emotion and mood to determine the amount of detail required to complete a piece. Murray feels that the ‘nature’ of an animal, the correct pose and giving respect to the subject, all contribute to creating the beautiful art that he can be proud of.

June 2023 Rose Douglas
Rose Douglas has many creative talents with art being one of them.
She started her career in banking and then moved into clothing industry.
Douglas studied Pottery at Pinetown Technicon, Photography came next, and she obtained her Diploma through the International Institute of Photography. She loves wildlife and landscapes and often venturing out into the bush to pursue her passion.
In earlier years Douglas tried her hand at painting in oils, but found that medium did suit her. She later tried acrylics but, once again, she found that this medium was not for her. She has found the freedom she needs in watercolours.
Now retired, Douglas has once again found the time to dedicate herself to her art. She discovered graphite and oil coloured pencils and loves the fine detail she can achieve. She also uses pastel pencils and achieves the realistic details that she strives for.
Douglas draws from her own photographs and it gives her gives her great joy to use her own work.. She also takes joy in drawing pets and has done a number of commissions of horses and dogs.

July 2023 Joy Preiss
As a young child living in Cape Town, Joy attended Rustenburg Junior school next door to the Frank Joubert Art school in Rondebosch and it was here that she became aware of the importance of art.
Always interested in the activity of making art, she was encouraged by the art teacher at Estcourt High School. She trained at the Durban Technikon in the 1970s majoring in Sculpture, with Painting as her minor.
Now a retired art teacher who ran the art departments in various South African High Schools over a period of forty-three years Joy has her own art studio in Howick. This studio caters for all ages, from the young who go along on a Saturday morning to the older members of the community.
She is passionate about inspiring and teaching others to be creative and to produce art, focusing on helping her students discover their own creative voice, and always emphasises that the process of art making is what is all important, as opposed to the end result.
Joy has re- discovered the pleasure of painting, and is now working towards her own exhibition this time next year. The application of oil paint upon a canvas surface has a strong physical effect on her. And the way that COLOURS respond and react to one another affects her strongly.

August 2023 Pat Thomas
At the age of six with her friend Marguerite, she created pipe cleaner puppets for shows to the neighbourhood children. They had to paint scenery, puppets faces and programmes. They also made paper dolls with clothes. This was the beginning of creative experiences to last a lifetime.
She matriculated at Pretoria Girl’s High with art as one of her subjects and went on to the Johannesburg College of Education where she obtained a diploma in Senior Primary Education.
The Thomas family moved to Kyalami where Pat met an art teacher, Pat Daly, who introduced her to oil painting and, though her encouragement, started on her path as a painter.
The Thomas family then moved to the Lowveld to farm in Hazyview. As they lived near the Kruger Park she was able to paint many wild life paintings although she does not confine her work to wildlife as she paints subjects that are meaningful to her. She now lives in Howick and has joined the HARTS Art Society and says that she is inspired by the diversity of art that she has seen, and by the wonderful artists she has met.