still live 06 Painting

Career Details
Marina studied fashion design and owned her own clothing factory from 1984 1992, supplying designer ranges to boutiques. She was one of the winners in the Sarie/Dodos/Revlon designers competition and supplied designer outfits to participants in a South African television programme in 1990.

During the 1990s she started painting full-time. She is mostly self-taught and learnt most of what she knows, in her own words, from breathing the air during her 3 month stay in the City des Arts Internationale in Paris.

She has exhibited in London, Paris, Montreal, Seattle and South Africa and her work is on exhibition in galleries in South Africa, Third & Wall in Seattle (that also does prints of her work) and Gallerie Gora in Montreal. Her work has also been used on the sets of two South African television programmes, and is permanently available at ARTICLES & FRAMES in Pretoria, ARTERNATIVES in Rosebank, HYDEPARK GALLERY in Hydepark, ISIS GALLERY in Village Walk and ART IMAGES in Parkhurst, Johannesburg.

She also started making jewelry these are handmade from silver as well as natural material such as wood, stone, bone and semi-gemstones. Each piece is unique. Her jewelry is exhibited together with her paintings, and is also sold on a permanent basis through MIRI COUTURE at 55 Seventh Street, Parktown North, Johannesburg
At the moment she is working on two books: a cookbook (in collaboration with chef/retaurateur Renee van Bergen of IMAGINE fame), and an instructive book for people who would like to learn to paint and are of the opinion that they could learn from Marina.

She also offers art lessons at her studio to students who are interested in working with acrylic paint on canvas and the cost involved is R700.00 per month students have to supply their own materials. Interested students can contact her at
Views on her art
She works mainly with acrylic paint on canvas, and sometimes also incorporates mixed media. From time to time she uses her camera together with paint and other mixed media, but she does not see herself as a photographer film is merely an ingredient of such works, which tend to get quite abstract and simplistic, in the sense that it catches the clich of the moment and the feeling born from it. It is in no way snapshots of other peoples lives, but portrays her own perceptions.


In her own words: There is nothing pedantic about my work: no messages, no doctrines and no philosophies. As an artist I see myself as an observer rather than a philosopher. The subject matter of my work does not intend to convey any deeper meaning. It is important mainly as an accidental part of my observation of the reality of the world around me, which filters through me in order to trigger the important, interesting and intricate process of creating a work of art a kind of conversation between the medium, the subject matter and the objects depicted on the canvas. As creator of the work, I never dictate the outcome thereof it is simply a process between myself as the observer and the artwork itself

In the development of her work over the years, there is a definite process that can be depicted. Her earlier works show a fascination by the intricate processes inherent to everyday life - concentrating on every small detail in the plurality of the life around her. In her later works, the focus shifts to the most simple forms, the confrontation with the nothingness underlying the roots of existence. She believes that this focus will also take its own direction to form a life of its own. Her later works show a paradoxical fulfilment and intoxication by simplicity (e.g. a table with the light shining on it). She states: I find the freedom of doing something as simple as that and observing what happens in paint with the observation of such simplicity more healing than the bizarre workings of my own mind.

Marina Louw never hesitates to declare that she is extremely thankful that she is able to do what she enjoys doing most!

She works mainly with acrylic paint on canvas, and sometimes also incorporates mixed media