Dianne Heesom Green
Tours in Vredenburg

Teacher, Artist and Ceramisist living Patternoster on the West Coast of Cape Town, South Africa. Official Website of Dianne Heesom-Green.

In the small fishing village of Paternoster of the Cape West Coast Dianne Heesom-Green creates unique hand built clay sculptures, paints and hosts workshops. After Matriculating at Westville Girls High School, Dianne studied Art and Higher Eductation at the Natal Art School and University of Natal, majoring in sculpture under Peter Shultz. Feeling that a teaching post was too premature considering she knew nothing about anything except school and books, she left for Cape Town. After 12 years of designing and working within the computer and forms industry in Cape Town and England, Dianne decided high finance and corporate life could do without her and returned to Cape Town in Since then she has been teaching, exhibiting and generally exploring the ceramic medium and painting in oils. Her work is found in homes and collections across Europe and within her homeland, South Africa. This dry stone building was built by cutting the rock out on the surrounding landscape without the help of power tools. It was first built as a storage for wheat and grain, and was used by the farmers of the day. Now with the stone exposed and the windows reinstalled the old girl lives again as a wonderfully creative space. However, many images of fish from millions of years back are set forever in stone as fossils. With our diminishing fish stocks this also has significance. Vuyisa’sbuilding methods are traditional, yet his style of decoration is unique and contemporary. His pots have been bought and taken to different continents, spreading African influences wide. Fond memories and adventures are relived forever by having an oil painting of that special pair. The city than manages nearly 8 million people and still has space for approximately 243 galleries! Growing up and studying Fine Art in South Africa meant that all the famous paintings we saw were, at best, A4 in our History of Art book. Sculptures also had to squeeze onto the flat page and still try to look impressive. So,it took me years and a few thousand miles air travel to discover Gauguin’s glorious colour. was a thin brush stroke on brown paper, and that Degas Ballerina is really quite small. The week in London exhibiting at the Chelsea Untitled Art Fair was a first time for me. A chance to see where my work fits into the local genre and to find out what British artists are up to. The Saatchi gallery has an interesting exhibition of African art. London is a place where new and old building has merged wonderfully. Great aesthetic sensitivity is evident in buildings such as the British Museum. Even walking the streets one is aware of progress showing respect to tradition. St Pauls is best seen while crossing the Thames on Millennium Bridge, and incredible structure that telescopes the cathedral. Cathedrals are wonderful custodians of art while showcasing the ingenuity of architectural engineers of hundreds of years ago. Parks are also a rich source of sculpture, freely and readily available to all. Images of peat bog remains discovered in England came my way via National Geographic. My work at the exhibition was well received, especially the Polyhedron and the ever popular Fish. Due to the exchange rate, it was possible to keep my work in reach of most buyers and even those who just came to look, surprised themselves by walking home with an artwork.