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GREAT BRAK RIVER NEWS AND VIDEO - Spies Venter, who has been a prolific fine artist and art teacher for decades, has often destroyed his works in bonfires on his property.
He says: "My studio is a laboratory, where I do experiments."
It happens that he does not like the end result and gets rid of it. The Great Brak artist says he has never regretted burning a work of art.
Producing art can be a torturous process for him. On occasion he walks into his studio, takes a look at something he is working on, and despairs. He has to walk out again. "Then I have a glass of wine."
When asked if it helps, he says: "Sometimes, sometimes not. It makes me go to bed early. I'm busy clearing out the studio," he notes, pointing to a group of sculptures on the floor which will be thrown out. "Not that I'm going to die any time soon," he adds pointedly.
Photo gallery: Spies Venter: Prolific fine artist and teacher
At the age of 85, he is still discovering and reading profusely. He has a large library.
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Currently he is taken with the Bauhaus movement, mainly because painting, sculpture and architecture were especially entertwined then.
Venter says an artist decides whether to remain current and part of the latest trends or whether to do his or her own thing. "Everyone jumps on the bandwagon," he says. He decided to opt out of this and retreat, focusing on what he found interested him and made him grow as an individual.
Conflict
He touches on the conflict an academically trained fine artist experiences and the arguments for anti-art, -academia and -intellectualism. "All your beliefs and unbeliefs can almost destroy you or put you in a world of insecurity and uncertainty and you think more negatively and less positively."
Venter comes across as positive, determined and decisive. Seemingly, choosing his "own way" has served him well. True to his name - Spies means "spear" - he puts his views across succinctly and incisively.
Many in his art school studied fine art, but neglected it when they married and had children. Now they are discovering it again, but in a more adult way, Venter says.
He never tells people they are doing something "wrong". He emphasises: "That is a disgusting word. I prefer to say something is not working. Then we talk about it and try doing things a different way. You never criticise someone else's creativity."
He is concerned with philosophy and the thinking and emotions involved in creating art, not simply "seeing with the eyes" and "copying what we see".
One of Venter's favourites of his pieces is a colourful mixed media sculpture influenced by Antoni Gaudi's mosaics, which inspired him on a trip to Barcelona.
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