Anton Karstel
Anton Karstel (b. 1968, Pretoria) is a highly prominent contemporary South African painter and conceptual artist who currently lives and works in the coastal region near Cape Town. Karstel formalised his rigorous creative training at the University of Pretoria, where he successfully completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990 followed by a Master of Fine Arts in 1995. Since launching his career in the early 1990s, he has built an extensive exhibition footprint that spans both local South African institutions and international platforms in Chile, Italy, Germany, and the United States.
Karstel’s sophisticated studio practice sits at a compelling intersection of heavy painterly expressionism and piercing political conceptualism, focusing heavily on the complex historical landscape of 20th-century South Africa. Working primarily with thick oil impasto on canvas, paper, and cardboard, his distinct visual language is characterised by aggressive, heavy brushstrokes that intentionally dissolve and disrupt the fixed forms of his imagery. Rather than aiming for an aesthetic shimmer, this physical methodology functions as an act of erasure, seeking to "crack through" the propaganda and conventional narratives embedded within found photographs, archival state films, and old textbooks.
Anton Karstel (b. 1968, Pretoria) is a highly prominent contemporary South African painter and conceptual artist who currently lives and works in the coastal region near Cape Town. Karstel formalised his rigorous creative training at the University of Pretoria, where he successfully completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990 followed by a Master of Fine Arts in 1995. Since launching his career in the early 1990s, he has built an extensive exhibition footprint that spans both local South African institutions and international platforms in Chile, Italy, Germany, and the United States.
Karstel’s sophisticated studio practice sits at a compelling intersection of heavy painterly expressionism and piercing political conceptualism, focusing heavily on the complex historical landscape of 20th-century South Africa. Working primarily with thick oil impasto on canvas, paper, and cardboard, his distinct visual language is characterised by aggressive, heavy brushstrokes that intentionally dissolve and disrupt the fixed forms of his imagery. Rather than aiming for an aesthetic shimmer, this physical methodology functions as an act of erasure, seeking to "crack through" the propaganda and conventional narratives embedded within found photographs, archival state films, and old textbooks.
