Sonelle de Klerk
Visual Artist | Founder of VanniKloof Studio
Member: South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA)
Artist Overview
I am a South African visual artist and SANAVA member whose practice has evolved over more than two decades of travel, international exhibitions, and cross-cultural exchange. Working across painting, mixed media, and digital processes; my work responds to place, ecology, memory, and lived experience.
A formative moment in my career was an invited international artist residency in Torre Canavese, Italy, where I worked alongside artists from Syria, China, and Germany on a collaborative project exploring art as a language for world peace. This experience deepened my interest in art as a connective practice; one that bridges geography, culture, and shared human concerns.
I have held a sold-out solo exhibition in Hangzhou, China and have received multiple awards for painting, experiences that affirmed the communicative strength of my work and its resonance beyond national contexts.
After 21 years of working nomadically, I am now in a period of sustained studio-based practice rooted in the rural Eastern Cape. This phase marks a return to slow, attentive making; observing, documenting, and interpreting natural and cultural landscapes through both analogue and digital means. I am currently developing exhibition-ready bodies of work for submission to South African galleries.
Practice & Themes
My practice is guided by process and long-term observation. Key areas of focus include:
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Landscape & Ecology: Place-based work informed by natural environments and biodiversity
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Place, Memory & Attention: Slow looking as a way of recording lived experience, shaped by both everyday observation and long-term engagement with the rock art sites at Leliekloof. Together, these modes of attention reinforce a practice grounded in careful looking, respect for place, and sensitivity to layered histories that continue to inform contemporary ways of seeing.
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Mixed Media & Digital Translation: Moving between physical and digital formats
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Process-led Practice: Sketchbooks, studies, and layered making as integral to the final work
Founder & Creative Director VanniKloof Studio
VanniKloof Studio was founded as an extension of my own artistic practice — a response to the need for accessible, process-led creative spaces in rural South Africa. The studio supports workshops, sketchbook projects, residencies, and community-based creative initiatives that encourage sustained engagement with art-making.
While VanniKloof Studio operates as an independent platform, it informs my work through ongoing dialogue with artists, students, and community members. This reciprocal relationship between individual practice and collective creativity remains central to my approach as an artist.
Selected Experience & Recognition
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Member, South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA)
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Invited artist, international residency, Torre Canavese, Italy (collaborative project for world peace)
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Sold-out solo exhibition, China
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Recipient of multiple awards for painting
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Founder & Creative Director, VanniKloof Studio
Current Focus
Developing new bodies of work rooted in the rural Eastern Cape for submission to curated and open-call exhibitions, while continuing to contribute to the South African arts ecosystem through education, mentorship, and community-led creative practice.
For exhibition enquiries, curatorial conversations, or to view selected works, please get in touch.
