Este Mostert

She’s a deceptively slight figure, softly spoken but vocal, her body language relaxed yet firm. This points to a fact that Este Mostert readily admits: Self discipline, is an essential ingredient in a good painter’s armory of techniques. Este is a painter of what may best be termed romantic dream worlds often landscapes peopled with esoteric figures, all of them the result of an image bank of pictures she has created and stored over the years, She has the ability of many talented artists of conjuring up these images, complete with finite detail, and then conveying them onto canvas. It’s a sort of visual transfer of mental snapshots, some of them stemming back to her childhood. But it requires a strong discipline, especially when one realizes that Este is a busy mother, housewife, cook, gardener and helper of her husband who runs a successful local coffee bar. She seems to live an incredibly busy life and like many creative people, she isn’t always seized by the urge to be creative. Sometimes it’s far more fun playing with the kids in the pool or putting up her feet with a good book. She readily admits the truth of this but says that the very act of creating a paintings, when she feel more inclined to tend her roses or chat with friends on the telephone even when the need to do nothing for the day is almost compelling is, for her, a process of mood upliftment, the attainment of an almost spiritual satisfaction that has little to do with the mundane technical process of making another art work. I believe her response will strike a chord with many creative people who have self-disciplined themselves to make the physical process of their work mentally cathartic. To be able to make yourself do something well at which you excel is a true purgative. As Este says, you are left with a feeling of warm achievement that banishes all earlier edginess. She reflects a world of fascination, a true involvement with her inner self. And yet her mien is unassertive, indeed almost laid back. She hides well a mind of steel, a willpower that drives her to achieve more. And when questioned about she says it stems from her very young days in Kroonstad where, in her words “I grew up in a very disciplined environment.