Eloise Schoeman

Eloise Schoeman recently graduated as a fine art painter from the Tshwane University of Technology, where she studied under Dr. Jan van der Merwe. For four years, public transport was a huge part of Schoeman's life. She spent three hours almost every day on trains and busses. She would repetitively encounter many faces at the same time; countless brief moments where she would be sharing the same space with someone in close proximity, yet it was impersonal.

For several years she took photos of people in and around trains, busses, stations - in a vague attempt to document the people she was sharing a brief, mundane experience with. The act of commuting. Due to social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Schoeman started looking at the changes in public transport, the changes in commuters' body language, the newfound hyper-awareness of the surroundings of commuters and the change from crowded scenes to solitude and isolated moments. Eloise explains, "my work is shaped by the seemingly insignificant faces I see every day, the mundane experiences you forget about. By taking photos and painting it I get to romanticize the normality of everyday experiences."