DRAWINGS BY GREG LOURENS 

If the aborigines believe that having a photograph taken of themselves will steal their soul, then it would be fair to say that the pencil drawings and commissioned portraits of Greg Lourens will restore and magnify the soul of both his subject and his audience.

Greg Lourens has been quietly working on his own for the past 15 years, building up a substantial body of work and fine tuning his craft. His works, which take up to three months to complete are modern icons. They are not icons in the religious understanding, but more spiritual in that they invite the viewer to stop, and to encounter themselves in their present world. As a South African, he draws on what is happening in South Africa right now.

His African art is not political per se, but reflective of the people as they wrestle to make sense of their lives within the South African context.