Zerk de Villiers offers work filled with emotional introspection. It allows the viewer a glimpse into his  own life and emotions. The work is strong and confronts the viewer directly. His work typically contains a sense of, a feeling or an awareness that he brilliantly manages to capture. There is directness to the work that is uniquely Zerk de Villiers.

Painting - That is what human communication media are for Zerk de Villiers –  also a philosopher of art. Very successful in selling his work – paintings, mostly, but at times also sculptures He exists much more broadly, though: his whole life is filtered through the universal prism of art.

Take the example above: Poet sees a rainy landscape, and tries to capture in words the magic of the moment. Painter Zerk de Villiers reads the poem, and then finds himself trying to recreate that same feeling on his canvass. It is not the same physical picture that is transmitted here through two forms of art, from the initial landscape to what the art viewer takes from his painting, de Villiers points out. Rather, it is in a way an unbroken chain of ideas and impressions –  the idea of expectant life. It is a sense, a feeling, an awareness that is carried over through the media, which is passed on from artist to artwork and, in a different yet not unrelated way, to the viewer. This is the emotional aspect of art.

Zerk was born in 1958 in Welkom in the Free State.  After matriculating at Welkom Goudveld High he studied Fine Arts at the University of the Orange Free State under Leon du Bliquy.

In 1989 Zerk started his own teaching and fulltime studio in Bloemfontein after working in diverse fields as exhibition artist and product promoter at Stellenbosch Farmers Winery and Musgrave Arms.  He was also senior scenic décor painter at PACOFS.  He exhibited regularly at Decorex and was featured in various publications and television programs.

Zerk de Villiers has had numerous solo exhibitions and has taken part in many group and individual exhibitions His works features in private and public collections in SA, USA, Canada and New Zealand.  

He work with acrylics, oils and various graphic media , filled with rich colour, texture and a luminous play of light.

This personal journey of self-discovery, filled with symbolism and mystery is opened to the viewer by realism and symbols.  It transcends perceived reality.  Emotional revelation is carried through by reality-based visual images.

This inward looking to the invisible, throught the classical medium of painting, brings the viewer to the crossroads of spirtual and physical common ground that binds and links all humans in a universal consciousness. 

Zerk\'s paintings act as a personal epocalypse "a mirror" of  memories and dreams in which the viewer may recognize something of themselves and their own lives.  These images as messengers, carry a metamorphosis of forgotten memories and lost dreams.