Info: MICHAEL HEYNS BORN 1942 - PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA Even as a child Michael Heyns liked to draw. He was particularly influenced by poems he studied and illustrated at primary school, which made a lasting impression on him. No doubt it was here that he became aware of the evocative power of the artist's brush. His creative ability and insight enabled him to capture moods and convey these visually. He came across Ikebana in a series, published on Japan in the journal Lantern, and was impressed by the simplicity and "silences" evoked by this style. Michael's artistry was nurtured at the art school of the Pretoria Technical College, where he attended the practical classes of the University of Pretoria's Fine Arts degree. At this stage music also began to play an important role in his life and has since remained part of his inspiration. The "musical themes" of his abstract compositions capture rhythm and sound waves. In 1967, during his final year, Michael was awarded the SA Arts Association's New Signatures award for his painting Seetoneel. His first one-man exhibition was held the following year. At this occasion, Anna Vorster described his painting technique as contrasts of tonal values expressed in an ensemble with emotional connotations. The interaction between these elements also reminded her of the interplay of baroque musical themes. There followed a period in which the artist had to establish himself. As if to illustrate his own development, his next exhibition explored organic growth, nature and efflorescence. Michael began to fill his living-space with books, found objects and treasures such as pebbles, seed-pods, bamboo trunks and pomegranates which served as a referential source, particularly for his earlier sketches. Michael's distinctive paint application, sometimes wet layers on dry paint, pale colours on a dark background and subtle shades of colour have become distinguishing features of his work. Accents of colour, such as bright cycad pods, red poppies and indigo colours have always been crescent. Music together with poetry have formed an essential component of his creativity. For example his exhibition cased on youth and crucifiction referred to N P. van Wyk Louw's poem Beeld van 'n Jeug: Duif en Perd. Some of his favourite poets are Ingrid Jonker and William Rowland. Dr Rowland was involved in a painting incorporating body and hand prints, which suggest the confinement of the home/body in which we dwell. The oriental asymmetry of an Ikebana exhibition which he saw in the seventies found further expression in his works. Simplicity of style and evocative moods of the Haiku verses are echoed in his works. He depicts within his paintings fragments from his life which are, as it were, highlighted, while suggesting the existence of a greater whole beyond the painting. Over the years, Michael has experimented with a wide variety of mediums and techniques, for instance pen and sepia ink, woodcuts, monotypes, stencils and airbrush, as well as the frottage technique and cloth prints in paint. His three-dimensional works in clay, headshapes as well as fish, are on view at this exhibition. Michael has stated that he enjoys the tactile response to various mediums he utilises. He says that one of the reasons for being an artist is enjoying the feeling of clay or the brush stroke on canvas, or smelling the paint. Michael and his wife Susan have upon occasion joined forces and exhibited weavings. Susan is one of the foremost weavers in Pretoria and has woven several of Michael's designs. Michael has also collaborated with weavers such as Waltraud Hindlov and Anna Viljoen. Michael has not shown interest in landscapes. His main interest has been to portray man in various forms. Initially as invisible wearers of jeans and T-shirts with bodies incorporating an underlying sensuality and even eroticism: here the human body is depicted in a Platonic sense, as a model of physical and spiritual beauty but is however unable to shed its human ballast and corporeality. Another image he uses is that of the Pierrot-figure or faceless mask: that of the individual hiding behind a facade. His works incorporates a juxtaposition between the realistic and the symbolic. Jung no doubt would have referred to this phenomenon as archetypes, primeval images of the human spirit. Many, though being established symbols, are uniquely portrayed according to the artist's own intuition crafted through his use of images which he transposes spontaneously. The dove and butterfly represented in his earlier work, derived from his own environment but acquire a spirituality and a renascence. The pomegranates which have appeared throughout his paintings and clay objects were not only chosen as symbolic of abundance or the universe (as stated in the Bible) but for their specific colours and textures and in particular to express the image of blemishes appearing over the course of time on bruised skin. This is based on tragic images found in Michael's iconography of Elvis Presley in his last years as well as of faces of boxers. According to Plato the human head is symbolic of the world, of unity. Michael's uninhabited, magical figures and subsequent heads have since transformed into people having eyes and mouths. In Egyptian hieroglyphs the mouth denoted speech and the creative word denoted power. The depiction of garments also contain a totemistic meaning i.e. to either protect man, isolate or give man dignity and an identity. A technique may be flawless but if it does not posess sensibility, a vision or musicality, then it is heartless. Michael's use of colour is expressive and evocative, stimulating awareness. It attempts to analyse man’s psyche. Refinement is not an important part of his stylistic portrayal. He attempts to interpret the world in relation to man. He does not have to be a protest artist in order to be relevant. The artist has many options besides illustrating social injustice. Michael chooses to depict his own experiences and concerns, and contributes to art essentially in terms of his empathetic commitment. Although he does not often venture far from home, Michael is aware of the work achieved by fellow artists. All his impressions are stored in his remarkable photographic memory. The intensity and development in his work shows honesty and dedication. As an unassuming individual without social aspirations, he does not strive to competitional paintings. Michael is fond of this quote from Tolstoy concerning art: "Art is a human activity consisting of this that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.”