Paul Du Toit

Bio

Paul du Toit was a South African artist who carved a unique niche in the international arena. Beyond being able to access and be exhibited globally, du Toit simultaneously continued to create a very personal form of art that did not adjust itself to the demands of a commercial art market.

Du Toit’s art was his own; a linear, phantasmic world that he created from his mind and experiences.

Over the years, he built up a forest of symbols – his own alphabet of awkward scrawls that spawned off each other. When he created a work of art, he retained only forms that were appropriate. This, combined with the treatment of space and master lines, scratched into wet paint with sticks, resulted in a desired unity of composition. Primary colours were added on top of the impasto, and movement was created by a variation in the dimension of forms in relation to other elements. His work started out with a line (origination) and ended with a black line defining the pools of colour.

Among the many awards he received was a medal from the city of Florence in the Biennale Internationale Dell’arte Contemporanea. He was nominated for the Daimler Chrysler Sculpture Award of 2002. He worked with former president Nelson Mandela on several occasions and international musicians on the 46664 campaign and the establishment of Mandela Day. In 2012, he collaborated with another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to create a handmade illustrated artist book in New York benefitting The Lunchbox Fund. In 2013, Paul received a grant from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation.