AGAC 2023 Top 25 Finalist - Loezytha Maritz - Young Girl Reading

Top 25 Finalist in the AGAC 2023

- Artist: Loezytha Maritz

- Name: Young Girl Reading

- Size:  305 mm x 455 mm

- Medium: Oil on canvas

- Price: R11,050

- Framed

Loezytha is an emerging South African Artist and she has been awarded as a Top 25 Finalist in the ARTi Gallery Art Competition 2023!  

About this piece: 

Seeing this painting of the young girl reading, captured by the book, made me realise that the young people of today do not read books anymore. They would rather take out their cell phones and spend hours scrolling down. They are so attached to their phones that they feel lost without it.  They are chained to their phones. In the artwork you can see the book falling down and is replaced by the cell phone. Her imagination is falling to the floor with the book and images are forced into her subconscious through watching her phone. She loses the bright colour of life, as seen in my painting. Everything turns dull. She is in bondage. The only way she can get free is to put down the phone and make time for the things in life that matters.

About the Artist:

From a young age I had an interest in fine arts, especially portraits.  Pencil was the only medium I used during my school years.  At the age of 10, I won a national competition held by “Kraaines” from SABC.  I drew a portrait sketch of myself, sitting in front of a mirror.  It was then that my parents realized I have a talent for art.

I had no formal training in art and was in my thirties when I started painting and developing my own techniques. It was trial and error, but I enjoyed doing it. It became my passion, although I did not have a lot of time to paint. It was just a hobby; I was doing on the side.

For the past 14 years, I was running my business in Clarens and enjoyed doing prophetic paintings when I have the chance. I sell prints and cards of my work, with the script and the meaning along with it. I am inspired by the Holy Spirit, and through my art, I want to give people hope. The challenge is always to capture emotions in my work. Me doing a portrait of myself at the age of 10 ended by me doing pencil sketch portraits of people in 20 minutes, while they pose.

Due to circumstances, I will be painting full-time as from 2024.  I am looking forward to my new season being a fulltime artist. God (YHWH) will make a way where there seems to be no way. He has always been my provider.