Vincent Reid

“Born in 1970 and raised on a farm in Zimbabwe, I have always been a close observer of the outdoors and every bit of spare time I had was spent in the hills or along the rivers of the family farm. The unavailability of art materials at the time meant that I worked exclusively in pencil throughout my schooling.

After school in Harare I studied interior design and worked for 18 years in the exhibition and events industry as a designer / business owner. Having grown disillusioned and unfulfilled in this line of work I made a life changing decision in 2011 to pursue a full-time art career. My desire was to shake off the yoke of mediocrity which was prevalent in the trade show design industry and focus on developing my own most basic creative ability, drawing. My family and I relocated to the country town of Howick in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands of South Africa so that I could pursue art as a career in a more peaceful, rural and creative environment.

Pencil is my medium of choice. It is a direct medium which satisfies my desire to express the deep contrasts and textures of my subjects. I aim to capture those moments which represent the essence of the African outdoor experience. I am inspired by the textures of nature, and graphite allows me to incrementally and sometimes painstakingly carve those textures out of my paper. Each piece is a representation of my own personal experience and I will always endeavour to experience everything that I draw.”

Artists Statement
“To be able to sculpt and feel a texture, whether it be fur, scales, rock or bark as it rises from a blank piece of paper is the essential joy of using pencil as a medium. I don’t always know how to go about creating a new texture but somewhere in the process there seems to be a “eureka” moment where it all makes sense. And once you find that, you can make your marks, build your layers, add a bit, take a bit off, add your highlights, burn in your low lights, flatten, lift…feel. It is a direct medium and it satisfies my desire to express the deep contrasts and textures of my subjects. But it is more than just mimicking textures. Africa has these incomparable moments which never fail to inspire and I aim to capture those moments and focus in on them, removing background interference, drawing the viewer in to the heart and soul of the subject. Each piece is a representation of my own personal experience and I will always endeavour to experience everything that I draw because without that, the joy of the endeavour is denied. So on any given day you will find me either in the game reserves or in my own back yard scanning for whatever nature decides to dish up, or I am at my drawing board…reliving those moments through the end of my pencil.”