Wind torn island
Nicholaas Oswald Roos was born near Kimberley in 1940, where his father was a
farmer. He therefore grew up in a rural environment and as a child became intimately
acquainted with the landscape. In 1950 the family again moved, this time to South West
Africa (Namibia), and Roos, then ten years old, got to know the Namibian landscape
which would later play such an important role in his art. Over a period of nearly thirty
years Nico Roos has grown in stature as an artist until today, at the age of 53, he is to be
regarded as one of southern Africa's important artists.
As a student at the University of Pretoria his professor in Art history requested him to
write a paper on Adolph Jentsch. Jentch introduced him to the world of philosophy, and
also explained to him how he applied his Eastern philosophy in his painting. In these
days Roos's own painting revealed strong sylistic influence form Jentsch's art, and even
today we see certain elements in Roos's work which remind us of Jentsch's
"handwriting".
He was influenced indirectly by European masters such as Picasso and Braque, and
especially by the brilliant Graham Sutherland, who was to have such a strong and lasting
influence on the work of Roos.
Roos's earliest paintings (from the period of approximately 1965 to 1967) reveal a
romantic vision of the Namibian landscape, strongly influenced by Jentsch. Many of the
scenes he paints are landscapes of the imagination.
From the sixties onwards Roos's concentration on the outward appearance of nature
decreased, while we find in his work an increasing spiritualization. We see him in these
years struggling to reveal the intrinsic characteristics of the South African landscape in
an individual, personal manner, as his work becomes more and more abstract. Some of
the intrinsic qualities of our landscape which Roos captures in his paintings are the
following: its rough textures, the predominance of earth colours, the staccato rhythms
and sharp light and dark contrasts caused by the fierce sunlight, and predominantly
sombre mood and even dramatic qualities which we find here. This predilection for the
dramatic can also be traced back to the influence of Graham Sutherland's art.
An aspect of the importance of Roos's art lies in the fact that he has achieved a unique
interpretation of the South African landscape. He has stripped the landscape of all
romantic associations, has investigated its geological structure thoroughly, and has
revealed its essence completely. He depicts imaginary worlds which only come alive if
the onlooker begins to join in the game and is pre- pared to follow the artist into his
imaginary world. Only when we exert ourselves and participate in an imaginative way in
the adventure of rich colours, involved shapes and strange, romantic emotions, does the
world of Roos become reality and do we feel that we can move around in it. That is when
a space is created between our own, everyday world and our identity, and when we
achieve entry into a richer, fuller world where something fascinating is constantly taking
place - it is as if he wants to encompass the whole cosmos in each of his landscapes.
This is especially so in his so-called "shaft paintings", where practically the whole
surface of the painting is filled with a kind of cross-section through the earth. In this
cross-section intricate contrasts of planes, lines and textures can be found, which,
although largely abstract, refer to rocks, earth layers, roots of plants and to undefined
geological structures. These works often have the feeling of a primeval world, in which
the passing of centuries has gradually altered the geological structure.
Roos's visual language has changed through the years from a fairly simple, true-to-
nature one to a language which is comprehensive, involved and almost abstract. His
landscapes never carry symbolic elements. What he wants to depict is the more
universal experience of the landscape. In the creative process, however, the landscape
is transformed into a hyper- personal, individual vision and an individual emotional world.
Concomitant to this is his increasingly rich use of colour and his increasingly intricate
composition. Even in his smaller works we find a microscopic reflection of the macro-
cosmos. The intricacy of the works gives a richness to the painted surface, because
each element appearing on that sur- face refers to another element or elements which
appears elsewhere - a fascinating game of point and counterpoint which, in the large
paintings, possess the richness of fully orchestrated symphonies.
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