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Edna Fourie is a full-time artist who lives and works on her farm near McGregor in the heart of the Breede River Valley. Being immersed in nature on a daily basis is her driving force and muse.

Edna’s oil paintings depict images such as figures, flowers, birds …and bugs, which become carriers of deeper meaning. The theme running through all her work is inner transformation – both personal and universal. Edna’s art celebrates the re-awakening of the visionary in all of us.

Light is the most important component in her work. A multitude of overlapping layers of thinned oil paint create a luminosity and ethereal, meditative quality. This gives Edna’s paintings a spiritual identity. Light seems to emanate from her paintings, rather than bounce off the canvas – it becomes a metaphor for making the unseen visible.

The concept of layering also becomes a metaphor for the shedding of the many layers of social conditioning:
‘Peeling back the layers
And finding underneath all the emotional layers
Was a void of nothingness
And falling through that gateway
I had come into the extraordinary presence of my own soul’
(Brandon Bays)

Edna’s art focuses on the resulting outcome of crisis and challenges – not the drama. Its message is global and it contains the feminine quality of gentleness which is so sorely lacking in today’s world.

Solo and Group exhibitions
1981
Group Exhibition: University of Stellenbosch gallery

1988 – 89
Two Group Exhibitions: Arts Association, Bellville

1992
Solo Exhibition: The Art Scene, Sea Point

1993
Group Exhibition: The Art Scene, Sea Point

Group Exhibition: Rust en Vrede, Durbanville

1994
Group Exhibition: Jean Welz Gallery, Worcester

1998
Solo Exhibition: Rosendal Gallery, Durbanville

Group Exhibition: Helderberg Arts Festival, Somerset West
Group Exhibition: Arts Association, Bellville

2000
Group Exhibition: 22 Oxford, Durbanville

Solo Exhibition: Kirstenbosch, Cape Town

2001
Group Exhibition: Make it Visual, Welgemoed

2002
Group exhibition: Amani Wine Estate

Solo Exhibition: Kirstenbosch, Cape Town
Solo Exhibition: The Little Gallery, McGregor

2003
Group Exhibition: Stellenbosch Art Gallery

2004
Group Exhibition: De Kraal Gallery, Paarl

2005
Group Exhibition: Lindy van Niekerk Gallery, Welgemoed

Group Exhibition: Afrikaans Kunstefees, Cape Town
Group Exhibition: De Kraal Gallery, Paarl

2007
Opening of Edna Fourie Gallery, McGregor with Solo exhibition titled ‘Whispered Release’

2008
Solo Exhibition: ‘Unfolding Spirals’, Edna Fourie Gallery

2009
Group Exhibition: McGregor Art Festival

Solo Exhibition: Erinvale Estate, Somerset West

2010
Group Exhibition: McGregor Art Festival

2011
Solo Exhibition: ‘Shimmering’, Edna Fourie Gallery, McGregor

2012 – 2019
Building a Permanent Collection of my major work, while art for sale (mine) joined the Permanent Collection in an organic way in my gallery.

STUDIES:
1976 
B.A. Fine Art, Stellenbosch University
1980
Honours in Fine Art, Stellenbosch University

PROFILE:
1977 – 1996
Teaching Art at High School level, while simultaneously developing my own art
1996 – 2022
Leave teaching and become a full-time professional artist
1996 – 2000 
I run my own business ‘Painted Colour’, specialising in painted murals and decorative paint effects.  I also promote and sell the art of emerging artists
2001 
I relocate to my farm, McGregor
2007 – 2019
I run my own gallery (EdnaFourieGallery), McGregor
2019 – 2021
I market my art online
2022
I join the Gallery at Grande Provence, Franschhoek

GALLERY