Elbe van Rooyen

Elbé van Rooyen exhibited her work for the first time at the age of 14 and shortly afterwards won first prize in a drawing competition of three hundred contestants. Since then her natural ability to capture people and nature spontaneously and effortlessly has led to widespread recognition with both local and overseas clients.

Elbé was born in South Africa and studied at the University of Pretoria. She eventually held an executive position in the corporate world. However this demanding life could not separate her from her passion for painting. Numerous commissions and an increasing reputation as a powerful and gifted artist moved her to total devotion, and some would say, sacrifice. Elbé lives in the picturesque Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands where she works from her studio at home.

In her work art appears in its most delightful aspects, bursting with vitality. Elbé’s work offers a complete and self-contained world that is hers alone, in the centre of which she raises an altar to womanhood. She goes beyond the bounds of impressionism and attains the greatness of classicism, adding a “joie de vivre”.

Elbé draws from the real world only what she enjoys, depicting subjects that make people happy such as children, flowers, the beauty of femininity and colourful landscapes suffused with light.

“A painting should not be an official rapport. I personally like paintings that make me want to take a stroll through them. I have abandoned certain procedures of elaboration similar to academic painting and this has permitted me spontaneous effects intended to convey a radiant sense of reality.”