Artist's Statement

Artist Maureen Edgcumbe regards herself as a visual narrator. She sees her paintings as windows into rural Africa. The foundation of her painting style is based on the contrasts of oil paint and graphite. Scribbled notes on the canvas offer a clue to her thinking process. The concept of presence and yet non-presence is expressed by the contrast of confident sketch marks (which demand the viewer’s attention) with the sensitivity of her subjects facial expressions. It is this technique that makes Maureen Edgcumbe’s painting style distinctive.

Biography

Zimbabwe born artist Maureen Edgcumbe completed her Graphic Design diploma at the Natal Technikon in 1977. After her experience in the commercial world she decided to turn to the holistic field of Kinesiology which had a profound effect on her artistic style. In her student days South African artist Andrew Verster tutored her in figure study. Thereafter and years later she taught herself figure and portrait painting. In 2002 she won the Arts Interactive Portrait prize.

In the early years, Maureen developed a name for herself as a landscape artist. She sold her work through various galleries in South Africa. She was originally tutored in landscape painting by South African landscape artist Anton Benson.

Maureen brings together four elements of her experience in her work - her backgrounds as graphic designer, landscape artist, traveler and Kinesiologist. She runs Creative Processing workshops for students at her home in Cowies Hill.

Her paintings hang in the boardroom at the Kruger National Park Conservation Management Offices Phalaborwa and in many other major corporate art collections in South Africa. See Collections on her website. She has had much success on the Wildlands ‘Art for Conservation’ exhibition charity drive and for the past four years has been an invited artist in their Art for Conservation Auctions. Maureen was commissioned by the Wildlands Conservation Trust in March 2010 to paint eight art works to be presented to their major donors. She was one of the participating artists in the Artists Professional Practice Exhibition TWELVE which was held at the KZNSA Gallery in 2010.