13 May Paul du Toit – Featured Artist
Paul du Toit (1965 – 2014) was a contemporary artist based in Cape Town, South Africa who at times maintained a studio in New York. His output included painting, sculpture, work on paper and mixed media. He was self-taught and became known for a style of painting which favoured black outlines and thick strokes of paint in vibrant, primary colours. Before becoming an artist in the 1990s, he was a computer programmer. He understood the internet, applying his knowledge to build a website that gave his work a global reach long before he was nationally known.
But Du Toit was also much more than just an artist. He was an explorer, an adventurer, and an experimenter. He was a collector who loved books and music. Music was important to him, and as Tim Leibbrandt (2016) notes, he was able to transfer the energy of the punk music that so inspired him into his passion for making art. He was also a very generous individual, who willingly gave his time, participating in numerous charity events, both nationally and internationally.
At the age of eleven he contracted juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that kept him in and out of hospital for three years. He used this time of recuperation to learn how to draw and paint. He sculpted with the wax that was used in his treatment. His aunt brought him books on Miró and Picasso. These artists remained influential throughout his career, as was that experience of confinement, which is strongly referenced in his work. Sanford Shaman (2006) notes that it was only after Du Toit’s Zanzibar series of sculptures, produced in 2002, that his painted figures appeared less confined within their painted frames.
While at a hospital in Tijuana, Mexico in 2012/2013, Du Toit describes in his diary how a session of hydrotherapy ignited an idea for new works. Despite a weakening physical body, he could not wait to get back into his studio and continue making art. That same year, in 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Pollock-Krasner grant.
The ethos of punk music was the light that illuminated Du Toit’s path. It made him who he was: independent, non-conformist and someone who did things his way. He created PlanetPaul, a phantasmic space way beyond our milky way, which he populated with colourful, playful and energetic comic strip-like shapes and figures.
Ashraf Jamal (2016:11) writes that Paul du Toit “seemed unencumbered by gravity”, and unlike any other South African artist, he “celebrated the vim of life above all else”. It is an apt observation because Du Toit loved living, which he maintained at a blast beat. He achieved a great deal in a short space of time; his archive is our proof.
References:
Tsilik, P. (ed). 2006. Paul du Toit. Cape Town: PlanetPaul.
Jamal, A. (ed). 2016. Paul. Cape Town: PlanetPaul.
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