Just finding one’s way to his studio on the north-eastern outskirts of Pretoria is a happening. The studio itself is an unbelievable happening. Elwin is strongly built, tall and young-looking, in spite of his ice-grey hair. The first impression of his studio is chaos. The chaos of a haphazard, devil may care piling of objects on tables and chairs. This was a space created and honed to supply all the needs of a profoundly industrious artist. Elwin paints on canvas and hardboard. The marvelous use of pure limpid oil in palette knife scallops and finally the unique breathtakingly free kaleidoscope of

people, boats, houses and animals. He could be working on many canvasses at once, entering into the mood of each scene capturing and injecting a scene of joy in color and shape. This is not an artist of large empty brooding spaces or of intellectual symbols.

He fills every nook, cranny and dancing earth with life. He is in love with the simple, the homely, the roughness of peasants picking oranges, sailors, farmers, donkey carts, farm animals, and birds that burst in and out of the canvas. He is in love with blues and reds and yellows. Primary colors that tug at your eyes and mind. At the age of six, Elwin was taken to the artist Deliah Ravotti to study art. Each Friday he goes to his studio. He spends the entire weekend there, often painting throughout the entire night. He returns to his other life on Monday morning. His alma mater, unusual among universities today, honored him with a retrospective exhibition in 1990.

The University of Pretoria also presented a medal to Buchel for his contribution to Art and Medicine. He was awarded the Eugene Marais medal in 1994. Elwin Buchel now works as a consultant physician and gastroenterologist in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Elwin describes working in the Middle East as a privilege. The working day is shorter, and this allows him time to paint. The extra hours in his studio, and the exposure to new and exciting artistic influences, are apparent in his latest works, which explore his impressions of middle-eastern life and represent the exotic textures of this foreign landscape.

Elwin has the following to say about art: ‘My paintings have no allegorical messages, no existential angst, and they make no political statements. They simply reflect a mood, the joy of working with color, and the excitement of discovering new images and perspectives. I seldom go anywhere without a sketchbook and pencils’. To look at a Buchel painting, is to appreciate how the shades of grey that constitute the commonplace are infused with an unexpected brilliance. Elwin reinvents ordinary sights in a manner that is not only a testimony to the transforming power of the imagination, but also vividly expresses the beauty that is in the eye of this artistic beholder. His work is exhibited widely, as far as; America, Canada, Germany, Holland, England, Finland, Morocco, many embassies, UN offices, hotels in Mauritius, University of Pretoria / Bloemfontein and various galleries.

Feel free to view original paintings at www.johnwestart.co.za and contact West at +2782 9295124 or +2782 831 2585. We bring the art to your house or office through our mobile art gallery! Call to view your favorites.