103 images Created 10 Jun 2019
Trance Form by Rodger Hart - May 2019
Rodger Hart was born in Johannesburg in 1946 where he has spent most of his life. He studied Geology at the University of the Witwatersrand where he obtained a PhD in 1997. As an Earth Scientist he has worked extensively in the African bush, which is the source of much of his inspiration as an artist. During his career as a scientist his work has focused on the early evolution of the Earth and he has worked at many of the top universities around the world. He has published 50 articles in international journals including Nature and Science. Hart started painting in 1982, when he took a sabbatical for two year to study art at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. In 1986 he staged a one-man exhibition at the Rembrandt Art Gallery, University of the Witwatersrand, and in 2000 he held an exhibition at the Allianze Francaise Gallery, Johannesburg. He has also been involved in several group exhibitions. He views his career as a scientist to be intimately interwoven with his art, and much of his artistic endeavours are stimulated by his current scientific focus. One of his major interests is a search for common denominators between art and science, and how these disciplines respect the society and times that we live in. His major influences are Soutine, Frank Stella, Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Picasso, Gaughin and Pollock. Although Hart’s art is mainly influenced by Nature, he attempts to incorporate most of his life experiences into his work and in particular there is a strong fusion of art and science in many of his pieces Rocks are an important theme in many of his paintings and strongly influence his shapes and colours.