Hanlie Kotze

Hanlie was born on July 15th 1971 in Aliwal North, and studied BA Communications at the University of the Free State. Her poetic talent and skills already developed at high school which she treasures deeply and keeps all her writings in old school suitcases. Hanlie says she started writing poetry at SCHOOL and that she has always been fascinated by the interpolation of what could be called word art and her visual art, now increasingly moving to acrylics from water colours. Her father Kobus Kotze is an artist. Hanlie’s mother, Joe Kotze, is also an artist.

Her work is a mixture between surrealistically naïve and expressionistic art. Perhaps best described as almost lyrical and she favours symbolism in all her paintings to blend with the poetry she is divining as she works away at the easel.

She has a significant relationship with the Creator her themes in her paintings carry her experiences with God – Later in life, Hanlie suffered with bipolar mood disorder from which she recovered very well. She has intense creative energy which follows a structured lifestyle with a very productive outcome

How does she find energy for all these creative disciplines? After all, poetry is an art form in itself and to meld the two requires an extraordinary concentration and dedication. “My work is primarily the product of my imagination”. “I wake up in the morning with an idea, perhaps feeling a bit glum and I may paint a picture of a WOMAN flying of a window. Art is essentially an expression of mood and when you combine it becomes even more so.”

She also does illustrations for books. Her favourite books are those of children literature, as she adores the illustrations and memories that emerge from her childhood where she sat with her mother reading imaginative stories

Hanlie hastens to point out that she doesn’t compose realms of verse: rather the occasional phrase here, a word coupling there just to help her capture the very mood she wants to convey by the painting. But she gets enormously absorbed in her work although she happily concedes that her small boy and daughter is a delightful distraction. “Painting and poetry say the same thing”, she says. “I feel both are a reflection of your creative abilities and the marriage of the two is very natural.” Hanlie has been painting professionally for nearly ten years and so she has obviously hit on a winning combination.

She is now rated among the pantheon of well know South African artists who can hold their own anywhere in the world and her work is beginning to reflect.