Loud message in art

MAGDA VAN DER VLOED: LOVES TO DO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED, QUIRKY

- Hein Kaiser

Her work is incredible. Sculptures that feel animated. Paintings that are unapologetically loud. It sends shivers of pleasure down your spine when you are in the same room with her work.

Artist Magda van der Vloed's power lies in storytelling that is at once sharp, satirical and beautiful to the point of sensory indulgence. There is humour in her bronzes, grit in her portraits of women and a sense that nothing she creates is by accident.

Hyperbole is intentional, because when art makes you feel, it's done its job. All she needs is a medium.

"I love the challenge of working with a variety of materials and always trying to do something unexpected and quirky," she said.

Though she studied ceramics and worked with clay for more than 30 years, she doesn't want to be boxed in by a single medium.

She said her curiosity and fascination with art started a very long time ago, in the small town of Jan Kempdorp in the Northern Cape where she grew up.

"My father was a farmer and schoolteacher for mentally handicapped kids. He taught them various crafts and woodwork, and my favourite place was his classroom and workspace. It smelled of wood, turpentine, oil, glue, rattan, smoke from the coal stove and paint. I spent many hours there, just absorbing and experimenting. It was such a happy place for me," she said.