Nymphs by Suzette Swart

Suzette Swart says the following about her work:
“I began painting a few years ago as a way of finding myself after a deeply damaging relationship. Drawn instinctively to the human form, I began painting female figures as a way to express and reclaim my femininity. I was working through parts of myself that I had lost over the years, primarily the aspects of my femininity that I had lost touch with. Painting became a way of searching for myself, using the feminine form on canvas as a vehicle for reintegration and redefinition.

Inspired by Klimt and the Expressionists, particularly in the use of gold and silver, decorative mark-making became an obsession for me. I also began searching for the Goddess – feminine qualities found in nature: beauty, balance, creativity, colour, passion, and life-giving abundance.

Nymphs is inspired by Klimt’s Nymph paintings and explores the ethereal, watery nature of women – their ability to flow, to grow, and to exist in a constant state of change, adaptation, and manifestation. These artworks reflect femininity as fluid, intuitive, and powerful.

My work is characterised by expressive mark-making, colour, and movement. When I start a painting, I do not have a formal plan. I may have an idea, a concept, but my use of colour and composition unfold intuitively and remain largely unplanned. I allow the form to choose its own colour. The common thread running through the work is flow, intuition and freedom.

I am continually reflecting on my experience as a woman – through my body, expressing my femininity daily, learning, growing, and reaching toward the eternal ideology of the Goddess.”

Meet the artist
11 April 11am-4pm