Greg in front of "Transfer", an oil and charcoal on canvas, one of the works in his latest exhibition.

Please excuse the shameless promotion of my mate, artist Greg Schultz, but I went to the opening of his new exhibition last night and it was truly fabulous. Big works which took over the whole of the Ann Bryant Art Gallery in East London.

Greg lives on the Kwelera River in the Eastern Cape and it drives his art in every way, with his love of the land and water and wind flowing through all his wonderful paintings.

His latest exhibition, called “Traces”, features twelve very large  – 2.5m x 1.6m – oil and mixed-media paintings (and an animated film projection). They are huge expanses of intense detail, alive with colour and movement.

(The exhibition runs at the Ann Bryant Gallery in East London’s CBD till  July 7th.)

Greg with the blank canvasses that became "Traces".

Born and raised in East London, Greg was head of department of art and design at the Buffalo City College before becoming a full-time artist in 2007.

He holds regular exhibitions at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and his work has found its way into prestigious collection around the country.

He is becoming one of South Africa’s premier landscape painters and if I had the bucks, I’d acquire one for sure.

But don’t mind my ramblings, rather feast your eyes on the works below that are in the the latest exhibition (and click here to go to Greg’s website):

ABOVE: “Moon Path” was created out of oil, charcoal, wax, paper, gold and silver leaf, fire and water. Schultz started using fire and water as a medium in 2005 by which he sets painting alight and controls it with water. To see how this works, click here and start up the video entitled “Greg Schultz – Burn”.

"Pulse", an oil and charcoal work.

This work, called "One Hundred and Ninety Tins – Creative Cycle Part III", was made from oil, glue, graphite and 190 tuna tins on canvas and supawood.

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. Brett Kebble’s art collection of 133 works goes on auction tonight. It is estimated it will raise R100-million. Wowee! That’s a big number of an SA  art auction. But to put this in perspective, says Business Day, it won’t get anywhere near meeting the debts the late Mr Dodgy Dealer, who  illegally sold R2bn worth of assets belonging to companies he controlled and used the proceeds partly to curry favour with the ANC. SARS is  claiming R183m alone from his estate in unpaid taxes. Read the excellent Business Day story about one of kebble’s oddest legacies.

2. And also at Business Day, there is gloomy story saying that Absa figures show that the average price of homes has dropped the most in 23 years because of the sagging economy. Small houses faired the best, big houses the worst. Read the full story here.

3. Independent Newspaper got 150 SMS bids for the Julius Malema puppet that starred in the withdrawn Nando’s TV advert, says IOL. The two highest bids came from the Nando’s London office and a South African named Leo Chetty (they both bid R25 000), the latter in the hope that Malma will become president one day. Read the story here.

4. By all accounts our president in waiting, Jacob Zuma, was charming and pithy in Parliament yesterday and we hear that will have three first ladies at the plush inauguration in Pretoria on Saturday. Read the News24 story here. But I’m  bit confused here. Doesn’t he only have two wives? (And two girlfirends?) My liewe aarde! South Afirca is going to be an odd place with the Big Chief tearing up the rule book right from the beginning.   You got to hand it to him for goedspa though!

5. And those spy taps are still a hot item. IOL has a story saying that Zuma is not keen to release all of them to the public.  This a wee porblem as police bosses have promised suspended police commisioner Jackie Selebi all the tapes to use in his defence and the DA had applied for copies of all documents and evidence that the NPA had before him when he decided to drop the charges against Zuma as part of the party’s court challenge to the decision. Zuma’s lawyers, meanwhile,  have  demanded that the DA be ordered to hand over R1.2-million in security before it is allowed to legally challenge the NPA decision. This little boomerang is on the arc. Read the story here.

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