This photo was taken using my very old Sony Cyber-shot camera. The photo is of an oil on canvas painting done by a very good friend of mine Andre de Beer. Andre has done many paintings and loves to do district 6, donkeys , children as well as newspaper sellers, and is well known in South Africa.
I was very fortunate in that I was able, for a number of years, to sit, on Wednesday mornings, in Andre's studio with him, while he worked on a paining and I, next to him worked on my painting, without saying this was a very special time for me,which I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Andre is a very gifted artist who did a large number of painting depicting "District 6" in Cape Town.
District 6 was a very colorful area in the hart of Cape Town , largely inhabited by people of Malay origin,a wonderful and happy community, unfortunately it was decided by the old apartheid regime to demolish the whole area. To my knowledge the old mosque was left standing.
I have used a number of Andre's district 6 paintings and interpreted them, or part of his painting, with my own vision of what district 6 looked like. These paintings I hope to share with you at a later stage.
Andre is 84 years of age, but still produces beautiful paintings, only at a slower rate as before.