Rudy Cronje

Using primarily graphite and/or colored pencil on paper in a painterly way, my drawings celebrate nature’s abundant diversity as a wellspring of resilience, transformation, and hope. Informed by Charles Darwin’s minute observations of variation within and across species to trace the process of evolutionary change, my practice foregrounds variations in shape, pattern, texture, value, and contrast as found in nature. Humans have the agency to harm other species, but we also have the agency to transform our impact on other life forms into a more benign and mutually beneficial force. By portraying familiar elements of nature in newly imagined combinations, my work offers a vision of a human unity with nature that can steward all life, create abundant beauty, and spark playful delight.