100 x 80cm
Oil on french linen canvas
Framed in solid Kiaat wood
The story behind this painting…
When I first visited Avondale Wine Estate, I had the immense privilege of being shown through one of the oldest homes on the property, once belonging to the curator’s grandparents.
The house was filled with the most beautiful old furniture and objects, each carrying a sense of history and of a life well lived. Almost as an afterthought, I took a quick photograph of this armchair in the bedroom.
It wasn’t staged or composed. There were clothes draped over it, a cushion pushed to one side, a scarf hanging over the arm and small personal things simply left where they had been used.
But when I looked through my photographs afterwards, I kept coming back to this one.
There was something so incredibly warm and familiar about it. It had that feeling of an old pair of slippers. Comfortable, worn, loved and completely at home. It felt as though someone had only just left the room and might return at any moment.
That is what I wanted to capture in the painting.
Not a perfect depiction of an old chair, but the warmth and presence held within it. The traces of the grandfather who had lived with it. The countless ordinary moments, conversations and quiet rituals it must have witnessed over the years.
I allowed the edges to soften and disappear into the surrounding space, while the warm coral chair almost glows from within. I wanted it to feel remembered rather than documented.
Because sometimes the most ordinary objects become the ones that hold our stories most quietly.
And perhaps that is what I am increasingly drawn to painting: not the things themselves, but the life held between them.
