Lize du Plessis

Artist Statement

Lize du Plessis

Photographer, mixed media artist, kreativ wanderer. Seeker of stories hidden within, uncovered to heal and released to ripple outward...

In my early encounters with photography, I glimpsed the artist I hoped I’d become, but life led me elsewhere. Three decades later, though it almost feels too late, I embraced fear and returned, purposely, to my creative path.

I try to let go of who I think I should be and what my art must become. Curiosity and play allow space for what demands to exist and in that, I’ve found some peace with the world and my place within it.

My hope is that once released from my perspective, my art might find resonance elsewhere. A reflective truth someone has been avoiding or simply waiting to hear. A reminder, you are not alone in your way of being or feeling. An invitation into shared creativity, a scenius presence, a sense of belonging.

A camera, in one format or another, has always been my creative tool of choice. My images are usually abstract and emotive, reflections of inner and outer landscapes. Under the guidance of Martin Osner, I’ve begun to include more tactile hands-on processes and currently working with encaustic wax and integrating generative AI, paint, botanicals, metallic leaf and found materials with photography to create layered mixed media compositions.

Whatever form my photography takes from here, it will always be in service of expression, allowance and discovery. Early on, infrared imagery gave me a visual voice to explore the emotions I couldn’t name, when the language of clear communication often failed me and still does today. The deep longing, that profound, unexplained sadness and the quiet ache that fuels both determination and collapse.

Infrared, ICM, macro, multiple and long exposure photography all seem to connect deeply with these emotions, my perception and sense of wonder about the unseen rhythms of life. I have come to understand ephemerality as a thread that runs through all of this. What is short-lived is rarely the object itself, but the attention we afford it.

My work is an attempt to hold that attention still, long enough for what is hidden or overlooked to finally be seen. ICM taught me to release control and trust what light and motion decide between them. It all comes back to light, how we reveal or hide what surrounds us, by choosing where we shine our attention and what we leave in the dark.

I intend to return to these visual languages and explore them further alongside encaustic and other recently learned techniques as my work evolves.

Exploring colour, its significance and my instinctive reactions to certain combinations, is another new, fragile and ever-continuous curiosity I’m interested in. As I delve deeper into colour theory, I hope to incorporate it more intentionally into my practice, allowing it to guide and enrich the emotional layers of my work.

Luminous Echoes, my first art series, which I describe as “neo-surrealist figurative art”, has become both a mirror and a map, allowing me to observe myself and transform through the act of making, tactile engagement and the digital reimagining of mixed media elements. It is a process of fusing old and new, binary and non-binary, not only in terms of identity, but also across the contrasts of life, thought, emotion, artistic structure and in the fluid movement between digital and analog. It reflects my embrace of fixed roles and the in-between spaces, of light and shadow, the real and the surreal, the conscious and unconscious.

I will continue to challenge past frameworks and the boundaries I once set for myself, welcoming new ways of creating without judgement or control.

This path has rekindled a deep love for making, transforming both the process and the person behind it. By accepting the invitation to play, I’ve found release in the quiet journey of becoming without permission...

You might ask why I work the way I do. This is the closest I’ve come to an answer.”

As light interacts with form and matter, it leaves an impression within your mind’s eye that, reflects your soul connections back to you as emotional responses, even if you don’t recognise it in the moment. Your body remembers and responds. Positively or negatively, the perception varies, but the response is always organic and truthful.

Impressionistic art reveals that connection visually. They help you recognise what your soul connects with, it is about seeing and expressing differently, more subconsciously. They reveal our connections with all that surrounds us.

Light and its interactions with all matter reveals what shadows, time and place protect, until discovered and you offer it into the world through whatever medium speaks to your soul.

Art is the threshold through which what was hidden is finally offered into the world.

We might not always understand the language of our own souls. But the courage to act on the call, to explore through art, mindful interaction or any chosen expression, might lead you to discover a small part of yourself that will offer you comfort and hopefully some level of acceptance.

Not everything I know about my work or way of seeing arrived through making. Some of it arrived through trying to understand why certain light, forms and moments stop me completely. Not all is ever fully revealed. But that is what keeps us returning for more...