It is never too late to follow your dream!
For many years I experienced an incredibly successful and fulfilling business career, but as I grew older and wiser, I realised there was a deeper longing within me, a burning passion to create art.
Having had no professional training, but blessed with inherent artistic skills and flair, I embarked on a journey with Joy Heyneke, a well-known Christian artist, who shaped and developed my skills, awakening my creativity in ways I never imagined possible.
I discovered that I love eyes and the deeply intimate expressions on faces and this may well be the reason I enjoy portrait studies so much. I work mainly in oils or multi-media, expressing emotions and feelings of people.
I have a close connection with animals and this can be seen by looking at my horse oil paintings and large graphite drawings on white boards. I occasionally use pastels, simply because they create a soft, magical look and feel of an animal's fur, and enhance the gentle loving expression in their eyes.
I was born and grew up in the Limpopo province of South Africa alongside of the beautiful Soutpansberg, in a small Bushveld town, Louis Trichardt. My father, Piet de Vaal, the local lawyer was also a well-known baobab and landscape artist and my love for landscape painting was definitely inherited from him.
After my retirement, during lockdown 2020, I moved back to where my roots were and receive daily inspiration from my beloved mountain to follow my dream.
My art-soul is satisfied!
INARI
