JACOBUS SILWER - Ballpoint pen Sketch Artist/Singer/Songwriter
Nothing comes close to the void and the excitement a blank space creates in my being. This might seem simple and ordinary but my first little drawing, a crooked tortoise carefully created using neon coloured wax crayons, was all the inspiration my two year old mind needed to know that I was going to be doing this for far longer than what anyone might have thought at the time...
For as long as I know I was singing. Our family was always singing and the home was always filled with music! I sang in all the choirs at school and always ended up singing some song for some old person at a party my family attended. I played piano, sang in choirs, and played every sport I can think of!...All the while sketching wild African animals in my room at night. come to think of it, I sometimes sketched in class, during break, on holiday... It all actually came together while studying Graphic Design in at the Technikon Free State in 1999. I was a serious busker at any pub in town and a semi-serious Graphic design student with no goal in the cross hairs. I finished my studies and went to London, UK, to pay off a hefty student loan. A working and singing holiday for two whole years! When I got back home I started job hunting to no avail, since Graphic design was such a popular career choice in the early 2000's, EVERYONE was doing it. I tried multiple practices in all directions just to make rent but I wanted to sing! One of my more stable career choices was Taxidermy in which I excelled because of my well honed skill as sculptor (the Graphic design course had a brilliant fine arts section to it), but I ended up trading the wet skins for my guitar and entered the full time music industry.
I married a brilliant, beautiful, creative mind, Lizzy, who herself is an accomplished artist, and she inspired me to start drawing again. It was an amazing path of rediscovery and everything just seemed to fall in place from there on. I love sketching with ballpoint pen and specifically in black ink as there is no "back" button. If you make a mistake, you've got to work with it. As in life. I always leaned towards "starting over" rather than working with the mistake, but the pen has taught me a different lesson - sometimes the "mistake" you made, becomes the pinnacle of the artwork you create. There's a certain kind of glory in turning a "mistake" into a victory. I love drawing trees, magnificent, awe inspiring giants! I also love drawing ships, airplanes, old cars, tractors, animals and landscapes...I love to draw anything really. I still love doing trees the most thogh.. Any commissions are welcome, although family portraits are going to be exceptionally expensive since I prefer not to do sketches of human beings ;D
Education
1999 - 2002
N.Dip Graphic Design, Technikon Free State
Exhibitions
Solo
2018
Forest Cathedral - Hymns of the Trees, Gallery on Leviseur, Bloemfontein, RSA
2019
Anchored - an exhibition with my wife, Lizzy, Gallery on Leviseur, Bfn, RSA
Contact Me
(+27)71 116 4425