Ina van Zyl (1971)
Olive green, wine red, ochre, a fringe of pale blue – the brushstrokes of Ina van Zyl glow. Each canvas is totally devoted to a single foot or breast, a phallus or a female pubic area. Many of the ideas for her paintings come from newspapers, magazines and advertising folders. Van Zyl enjoys fixating on a single detail in the initial plan. The beaming sky above a mountain landscape, the purplish aura of a skin or the delicate ribbons on a lace panty. It elevates her micro subjects almost to portrait stature, with personal traits.
The attentiveness with which she paints all these subjects draws the viewer's attention first and foremost to the paint. The bearer of pure pigment, smeared creamy thick on the canvas, dried in crinkled ridges and combined with fresh licks of paint. The combination of subjects and use of materials gives her canvases an atmosphere of alienation and sensuality. Ina van Zyl has been painting since her stint at De Ateliers between 1996 and 1998. Before that time, she worked in her home country of South Africa, primarily in drawings, including work for the underground comic Bitterkomix. Even then, she reserved a whole sheet of paper for each single image.
