WALTER VOIGT

Born in Johannesburg in 1971, Walter Voigt grew up in the mountainous Lowveld Escarpment region near Nelspruit in Mpumalanga, South Africa. He was educated at Uplands Primary School, St Alban’s College and Lowveld High School. In 1992 he began a three-year course in Graphic Design at The Witwatersrand Technikon in Johannesburg, majoring and specialising in illustration.

Walter Voigt’s technical ability combined with a passion for the sky and landscape allow him to capture the elements of light, space, air and movement. There is a passionate love affair between earth and sky in Walter Voigt’s work. His paintings are atmospheric spaces designed for contemplation, “visual meditations” of sensual richness of colour, light and form. Voigt’s moody landscapes involve broad, energetic strokes, followed by lighter more sensitive touches. There is a vigorous, scratchy linear construction to his work, including other media such as palette knife, which Voigt says is easier to control than working with just a brush, giving variety and expression to the mark making process.

Voigt celebrates the African landscape as viewed through the European conventions of the sublime and expressionist. As he states, “The Turneresque views project a very emotive content upon the landscape. The quality of light and the juxtaposition with dark becomes a metaphor for broader, more ethereal concepts.”

His celebration of the landscape is clearly structured in the very physical nature of the paint, where the manipulations skilfully depict a deep love and reverence for nature. Voigt adds, “The works become a pantheistic representation, almost having a spiritual residue encapsulating the place. This is not an attempt to record the landscape but rather an effort to allow the viewer to experience the particular light that is unique to the southern parts of Africa.”

Walter Voigt is a full-time artist specialising in oil paintings and exhibits his work at the Everard Read Gallery in Rosebank, Johannesburg, Cape Town, London as well as Knysna Fine Art and The White River Gallery in Mpumalanga. Walter also gives workshops.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024 “Southern Perspectives”, Everard Read, London

2023 “Tswalu , A Wilderness Revisited", Fireblade Gallery, Johannesburg

2022 “New Landscapes”, Everard Read, London

2021 “Revered Landscapes”, White River Gallery

2020 “Paintings From the Lowveld” February Online portfolio

“Winter Landscapes” June Online portfolio, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2018 “Kruger – Sacred Spaces”, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2016 “Raw Beauty – Mapungubwe”, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2015 “Bushveld Landscapes”, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2014 “Bushveld Landscapes”, White River Gallery, Mpumalanga

2009 “Mali”, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2008 “Wild Horizons” Everard Read, Johannesburg

2004 Everard Read, Johannesburg

2003 Everard Read, Johannesburg

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024 “Let the Story Begin” at Knysna Fine Art

“Oil Painting Exhibition” at Knysna Fine Art

“Southern Light” Winter exhibition at Everard Read London

2023 “Lull” Group exhibition at White River Gallery

2023 “Knysna 25th Birthday Show” at Knysna Fine Art Gallery

2021 “The Absolutely Fabulous Spring Show" Everard Read, Johannesburg

2020 “Tiny”, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2014 Winter Group, Everard Read, Cape Town

2013 Everard Read Centenary Exhibition

2012 Winter Group, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2011 "Shift Exhibition", Everard Read

2010 "A View from the South", Everard Read Johannesburg

2007 Group exhibition at Everard Read “Southern Views – SA Landscapes”

2005 New Everard Read Exhibition 2002 Oil Pantings, Everard Read

1999 Everard Read Millennium Exhibition

1997 "International Wildlife and Natural History Paintings & Sculpture", Everard Read Gallery