Ruschka du Toit (b.1984) is a self-taught artist from Cape Town, south africa. Working mainly in ink, she embraces the unpredictable nature of the medium, exhilarated by allowing moments for divine chance. She works intuitively, using loose lines and emotive brushstrokes to express the beauty she finds in the everyday. As is her impulse to stop and paint the roses, her paintings call for pause to acknowledge the sacred in a natural landscape awash with colour or a bowl of fruit on a breakfast table cut open and ready to be enjoyed. Through the intensity of her inks, Ruschka’s paintings are imbued with mood, and although drawn to still life, her organic lines seem in motion. Allowing space for the unexpected in her art is a lesson she holds close in life; that we cannot always control an outcome but it can be magical nonetheless.

words by Alix-Rose Cowie