After a long Joburg-based professional career, Gqeberha-born artist Mary Fowlds has returned to her Eastern Cape roots. After 42 years in the Big Smoke, she’s returned to Kenton where she now lives and works.
The Diocesan School for Girls alumna studied graphic design at Port Elizabeth Art School and in her fourth year majored in portraiture. After 22 years of living and working in Gqeberha, she was snapped up by trop advertising agency, BBDO. Working as a creative director there and at other agencies
She loved the work.
“I found myself among people who could see and think like I do.”
But after eight or nine years, she felt her creativity wasn’t extended enough, so she left to paint. “I painted at school, and after school,” she said.
That was in the 80s, and that’s where Fowlds pins the start of her painting.
Soon, she was regularly exhibiting at galleries in Joburg and London.
She gave up painting for a while when she lost a daughter.
“And then I found eventually that it was therapeutic and I got back into it.”
The influence of the French Impressionists comes through in her subject matter, translucent layers of texture and colour, and strong sense of life in motion.
“The more time I spend with my subject, the more I see beyond the surface,” she says.
She loved Joburg, but she’d always planned to return to her Eastern Cape roots.
“Coming home to the Eastern Cape was about family – “my children and grandchildren”.
But painting will definitely still be front and centre
“I don’t ever stop painting – that’s my life. It’s something I love doing and it’s so exciting to find so many people here who are interested in creative work.”
Fowlds plans to do some teaching: “I think there are a lot of retired people who want to paint and I think that’s where I should go.”
“So here we are, with all this work we’ve just unpacked for the Eastern Cape. It’s a good start.”
More at maryfowlds.com or email maryfowldsart@gmail.com
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, October 24, 2024. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
