Larita Engelbrecht

Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Larita Engelbrecht lives and works in Cape Town.

Engelbrecht combines discordant images of dislocated figures, natural forms, the curves of modern sculpture and the hard lines of concrete architecture. Blending distinctive visual elements Engelbrecht creates images to challenge our pre-conceived ideas of contemporary culture.

‘Intuition Fee’ combines an intuitive collage practice with the rich traditions of oil painting.

Engelbrecht has been exploring various art-making practices, most recently combining collage and oil painting. From her collection of old books and magazines, Engelbrecht intuitively selects images for the purpose of combining disparate images into unexpected compositions. Coaxed by the surrealists of the early 20th century, these pictorial juxtapositions are, like the elements of drawing combined with it, spontaneous and automatic. The process of collecting books and magazines, are, however, more controlled and purposefully curated. Through the juxtaposition of one picture with another, Engelbrecht encourages us to rethink the significance of the original image in its new context. According to the artist, her work “challenges the viewer to question their own assumptions about culture and aesthetics.”

Larita received both a BA in Fine Arts (2009) and an MA in Visual Art (2012) from the University of Stellenbosch. In 2012, Engelbrecht was invited to an artist residency program at a new media gallery in Finland. Her work has been selected in a number of group exhibitions and art competitions in South Africa, as well as for a travelling exhibition, Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, hosted by The Vitra.