Painter Elsa Zorkow has been living and working in Lagos for 15 years, but her career spans more than five decades.
Expressive, emotional and gestural — these are the words found by 80-year-old German-Belgian painter Elsa Eliza Zorkow to best describe her style of work.
Born in Berlin in 1938, Elsa has been living and painting in Lagos for 15 years now, and her house and studio in Colégio, on the road to Bensafrim, is bursting with colourful, vibrant canvas showcasing the painter’s powerful and intentional brushstrokes.
“Her work is full of energy, movement, and a thick coat of paint. If you observe her paintings closely, you will always discover something new, a napkin with flowers, newspaper clippings, tablecloths and even toys. What feels like a description of a young artist in his or her experimental phase is in fact the work of an 80-year-old artist,” says art agent and curator Pablo Malter, who represents Zorkow at his art agency deLyra. “Elsa knows very well what she is doing, she has a great sense of colour composition and balance, creating works with classic themes, such as still life or bella donna, but in a contemporary way,” he adds.
Elsa Eliza Zorkow began painting when she was a child, and she hasn’t stopped since, exhibiting her work all over the world, from Belgium, Germany and Portugal, to Japan, the Netherlands and the US. “The walls and napkins in my house suffered a lot, and my mother was desperate. Of course I would always paint on everything I could find,” she recalls.
Inspired by painters such as Eckersberger, who used to play chess with her father, and Raddatz, the father of one of her friends whose horse canvas marvelled her, Elsa learnt the basics of painting in different night schools, studios and summer academies in Oberstdorf, in the southwest of Germany, where she grew up. However, the painter was a late bloomer when it came to art, exhibiting her paintings for the first time in 1985, at the age of 47, at Centre Medicis in Brussels.
From then on, she completed her formal training in the Belgian city, enrolling in painting and sculpture classes at Sint-Lukas Academy, and finishing an additional painting course at the Hogere Rijksschool van Anderlecht school. During this time, Elsa worked on lithographs and her trademark large-scale paintings.
Her studies took her around the world, travelling to New York, Israel, Greece, Tunisia, Japan, Canada and South Africa, but she would return to Brussels in between trips to teach art.
When asked about her career highlights, Elsa admits she has to resort to her art catalogue. “In the 50 years I have painted, things have started to lose importance,” she says humbly. After a little research, she mentions her displays at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and Theodor Heuss Foundation in Germany, and also the first prize for an oil painting she received in Kobe, Japan, in 1989.
Known for using a mixed technique, the artist has a unique and distinctive style of painting, which merges oil and acrylic paint, along with other materials, in thick coats of paint. She admits this makes her paintings “more difficult to handle”, as well as the huge canvas she usually favours. “They are as big as possible, but I just love them like that,” she says.
Her impressive brushstrokes often depict landscapes, flowers and animals, which is no surprise, as the artist enjoys being as close to nature as possible. “The Earth is so beautiful, and we just destroy everything. I could have chosen the path of denunciation, but I prefer to show beauty and light in my paintings rather than darkness. We are already so enveloped in negativity that I prefer to bring happiness, joy, emotions and tenderness [through my paintings], but also a dynamic [feeling] and hope!”
Having travelled all over the world and lived in the Netherlands for 14 years, she fell in love with the Algarve with the help of her daughter, who spent many summer holidays in Odemira, close to the Algarve border. She eventually established herself in the Bensafrim area because that was the only house she could find with a suitable studio. “It just happened.”
In the last two years, most of Elsa’s work was focused on commissions, as she developed a loyal group of clients over the years. “I like it, it is always a challenge. For example, without client orders, I would have never painted a rooster or a cat, or even [a version of] a Rubens’ painting, The Rape of Europe. The only animals I would have painted were elephants,” she notes.
With a few artworks currently on display at the frame shop Moldopóli in Lagos, Elsa is hoping to present a huge exhibition at the Lagos Cultural Centre next year to celebrate her 80th birthday (she turned 80 on December 3), a fitting commemoration for a lifetime dedicated to art.
Watch this space for news of upcoming exhibitions by the artist and an Open Studio.
For more information, call Pablo Malter on 967 147 656 or email pablo.malter@delyra.net
www.elsaeliza-zorkow.com
By ANA TAVARES
ana.tavares@open-media.net
