Ruschka du Toit (b.1984) paints flowers and still lives in ink. With loose and gestural brushstrokes she captures her subjects, partly emerging, partly disappearing from the paper or canvas. As is her impulse to stop and paint the roses, her paintings call for pause to acknowledge the sacred in the everyday, often serving as portraits of a single, precious moment.
Influenced by her fascination for all things nostalgic and melancholy, Ruschka’s paintings are imbued with mood, at once macabre and delightful. Her work tenderly holds questions of the divine, allowing her to further explore the vast nature of these questions through her practice.
Her interests lie in the symbolism and meanings attached to flowers and their ability to act as portraits of the sender/receiver/observer, studying the ways form conveys emotion, and the concept of immanence.