Interview by Jimon<\/p>\n
1-Where do you reside and create?<\/strong> Cape Town, South Africa.<\/p>\n 2-Did you study art or is it inherent?<\/strong> Never, I am completely self-taught.<\/p>\n 3-How would you describe Gert Rautenbach?<\/strong> Long ago, on my birthday, my wife and son said my best 3 things are: an interesting man, generous, with a great laugh. That was my greatest compliment.\u00a0 I am bookish. Before turning to art I wrote a blog about literature, movies, art and opera, in my native language - Afrikaans.<\/p>\n 4-Is there any reality behind the characters in your paintings or are they purely fantasy?<\/strong> The essense of my art is to express universal emotions in extremely simple ways people can relate to. The characters are not based on myself or real people.<\/p>\n 5-What do you dream about?<\/strong> Winning the lottery and retiring from my day job so I could immerse myself in developing my craft.<\/p>\n 6-If you could have dinner with 3 artists living\/dead who would be at your table?<\/strong>Cezanne, Repin and my late father.<\/p>\n 7-What artist working today you most admire?<\/strong> I do not know the contemporary artists today.<\/p>\n 8-Do you consider yourself a pop artist?\u00a0<\/strong> The very opposite. Pop is about color and cool and my art is emotion-based black and white.<\/p>\n 9-In your professional carrier, what is the longest you have gone without creating?\u00a0<\/strong> 30 years. I drew as a child and young adult and then stopped when I started to work, until I got retrenched for a few months in 2015. As it turns out it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Tolstoy wrote a great story about a man who thinks about his life-decisions only three times, decades apart, each time after suffering the loss of what he had clung to.<\/p>\n 10-Do you have an assistant and if so what does he or she do?<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n 11-What is the source of inspiration for you?<\/strong> Believing that something beautiful will exist today that didn't exist yesterday - and that I will create it.<\/p>\n 12-Are you an optimist, pessimist or realist?\u00a0<\/strong> Pessimist.<\/p>\n 13-What scares you the most?<\/strong> The thought of falling ill and not being able to take care of my family.<\/p>\n 14-What emotion do you expect to be on people\u2019s faces when they look at your art?<\/strong> The WOW of seeing life emanating from a few strokes.<\/p>\n 15-What is art?<\/strong> Art is the moment when you find the needle in the haystack.<\/p>\n 16-How would someone find you on the internet?<\/strong> On Instagram - @gertrautenbach. I only keep my last 100 pieces on Instagram.<\/p>\n 17-Please name the first thing that comes to your mind while reading the following:<\/strong><\/p>\n Art= purpose<\/p>\n Food= curry & rice<\/p>\n Sports= Rugby and Chess<\/p>\n Politics= Socialism<\/p>\n Poor= robbed<\/p>\n God= never met<\/p>\n Rich= destroy the tax havens around the world please!<\/p>\n Luxury= ditto<\/p>\n Sex= consenting adults<\/p>\n Picasso= macho man<\/p>\n Religion= Spiritual<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-5528","artists","type-artists","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists\/5528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artists"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artists"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}