Loranda Fourie is an abstract artist based in Pretoria, South-Africa. She works with acrylic paint and mark making mediums such as charcoal, pastels, and pencils on canvas. The essence of her work lies in layering. It’s about building from a foundation where textured layers form the root that leads to un-expected surprises, guiding the outcome of the piece. She then expresses her feelings by adding detail using different tools to create the necessary structure, form and composition that brings the painting to life. Her art journey began in 2018 when her personal life fell apart and she discovered that she could use painting as a coping mechanism to stay focused, as well as helping her to forget about reality for a while. She fell in love with it, not because it was a saviour, but because it made her realize what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Her aspirations were validated when she sold her first artwork during an open house when her home went on the market. Since then, she has sold works to the pub-lic as well as interior decorators, two of which were commissioned works for the new head office of an International Pharmaceutical Company as well as a new residential development in Cape Town, South Africa. Wanting to get international exposure, she entered a juried art competition in America where one of her pieces was selected to be part of a 50-piece exhibition curated by Juan Kelly and chosen out of 4500 international entrants. Her piece went on to be sold to a collector in Australia. Her work has also been selected for the GalleryOne962 Virtual Gallery curated by Letizia Bocci for their Art Prize Competition and Exhibition in February 2021, she was also featured as part of the Lost and Found online exhibition hosted by Art Gallery 118. For her, this is just the beginning…

Statement:
When I first started painting, I fell in love with it. It is a way for me to create and to feed my soul, and hopefully the souls of others who sees beauty in it. The reason I want to paint every day is curiosity. I want to experience what I can create next. The most satisfying thing for me is to look at something I created and feel fulfilled with the outcome. For me a particular piece does not start with a certain feel-ing or emotion, I just start a painting. It starts with layering to create texture and a natural attraction to certain colors at that moment. In the process, I start seeing things that work and I build on that. When the marks and images I see on the canvas start to excite me I am able to interpret the story that a par-ticular canvas wants to reveal. My emotions become clear, and my essence is translated into the work of art.