Oil painting Michael Heyns 270 x 270 mm

Oil painting Michael Heyns  270 x 270 mm.

They are exquisitely and comprehensively developed, and the large, white, negative spaces are as meaningful as his sparse line work. Oil painting Michael Heyns 270 x 270 mm.

The triptych Gekruisig (Crucified) reads like a threefold Shroud of Turin, with negatives of the holy Veronica in female (left) and male (proper) form, with an androgynous central panel. Oil painting Michael Heyns 270 x 270 mm.

There is a teasing quality in the depiction of drowning in the left-hand panel, compared with the man with an archaic pair of doves in the right-hand panel.

Equally strange are the stigmata on the hand in Boodskappe van my Lyflikheid (Messages of my Corporeity). The tracing of suicidal hands, Om very te sterf (To die freely), lends an intentional shock dimension to the collection. The choice is still the viewer’s.

It is the visual impact of the works that the viewer remembers and the content thereof. Even when the first impressions fade, a feeling for the artist’s soul remains.

In Michael Heyns’s work, there is a striving for the metaphysical toward creating the prototype, which results in intensely personal imaging.

The unforgettable Swartbok (Double Black) reminds us of the intensity of the feeling of Judith Mason’s early paintings.

A volumetric Houtmannetjie (Wooden Man), isolated and archaic, is shown as both a front view and in profile, as though Heyns – like the ancient Egyptians – would have wanted to capture the essential.

This painting reflects his work’s subtle dialectics of reality and art: based on an existing image, the wooden man is changed into a timeless icon.

Once again, Heyns, one of Pretoria’s better-known painters, shows that his work is technically of a high standard.

The visual reference points he uses are minimal. His use of the exact figure and head forms repeatedly makes the viewer realize that all the forms are symbolically used.

His work is emotional, but when you look at it more closely, you recognize the total mastery and skill with which everything is executed.

He sometimes uses a fiber or textile print, such as in Granaattyd (Pomegranate time). Nothing is left to chance; even where he washes the paper to obtain a particular texture, this is done according to plan.