Dried Sunflower

A beautiful pastel Tempera painting of sunflowers by the contemporary South African artist Adéle du Plessis.

Adéle played with the quick-drying aspects of tempera paint and the sketches she made.

Artists often painted in their studios, combining natural elements into fantastic works of art. Then we had a period where we painted nature like in the late 19th century, early 20th century. Adéle plays with art history, traditional mediums and art philosophies.

Plato reasoned in Politeia that an idea of ​​something like a chair was the ideal and perfect chair. When you start thinking about what it should look like, it's already a degree away from the perfect chair. The execution and making of the actual chair is then a second-class product because it would never be as perfect as the thought of an ideal chair. And if an artist were to paint a chair, it would be three degrees from the perfect chair (which, by the way, had no shape until you think about it in your head). That is why artists should be banned from an ideal society. In Lockdown, during the COVID-19 pandemic, art is exactly what saved us. Music, films, series, crafts and watch how the artist can enrich your life.

Adéle's painting is a rich tapestry of complicated art history and philosophy combined into beautifully structured paintings. The pleasure if it is for deeper investigation.