Meet high-end artist SHARM.T.P (Sharmaine Theresa Pretorius, aka Ilza), who is based in Nizwa for the past 7 years, as guest writer Mary Philip shares her voyage into the extraordinary mind of the artist
How many of us have a dream, dream extraordinary and then recall it later?
Many of us will fail to remember its finer details for sure. But not so for Sharmaine Thérèsa Pretorius, a South African artist based in Nizwa, who sees herself as a visual interpreter of dreams. Her surreal paintings are inspired by her dreams, which leap into the unseen future.
“I call myself the ‘accidental artist’. It is the only medium, which possibly combines all my interests, intuitions and capabilities as a single ‘snapshot’ – emoticon – if you may say. In my art, I can express freely, without the possibility of affronting anyone.”
– Sharmaine Theresa Pretorius
The artist finds her dreams a window into a parallel universe of ‘holographic memories’. For her, each of us is surrounded by our holographic memories like ‘pillars full of bubbles’. Her belief that ‘every person lives in an enclosure of some kind’ was proven true when her high-end art exhibition, ‘Enclosure Fathom – Part 1’, was officially opened at Al Rayyan Gallery in Nizwa on 24 February, amid floating, glistening bubbles and walls bright in shades of pink.
Advocate Ben Ewing, Legal Executive and Head of the Oman office of CMS and also her legal representative, and Abdallah Al Shami, Managing Partner of Mad Solutions, blew bubbles mimicking the shape of holographic memories against a vibrant Vanitas (a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life and vanity of earthly pleasures) backdrop to the artwork ‘Restitution and Contrition’, which was also accompanied by a short story ‘Kickbacks, donkey paws and past reveries’.
Enclosure Fathom
Vanitas Orange Pink – Photo credits: SHARM.T.P.
An extraordinary artist with no formal training, and yet holding more than 600 continued educational credits, Sharmaine is a new-found marvel among the emerging artists. Her first solo exhibition was set up elaborately in the background of Vanitas objects, which could be easily mistaken as a very playful, simple affair, until the complex texts and time needed to absorb the meaning of it all, starts threading and connecting what is seen. It is this weaving of complex ideas and the intricate framework of the collection, which held collectors’ fascinated, and made them realise that what they saw was only a tiny looking glass into the unknown depths still to be discovered.
About 150 high-end art collectors were invited to the exhibition, hoping that the considerable amount of interest in the artist’s work will also permeate into the broader Omani art scene. Two works were sold last year, and the remaining ones were sold via offshore auction on March 16.
Rose Book Opening – Photo credits: SHARM.T.P.
Inside Sharmaine’s mind, every person lives in an ‘enclosure’ of some kind. They have their own paradigms, fashioned by genes, life experiences, unseen forces, and influences. All matter, composed of elements, consists of atoms. Like atoms our ‘holographic memories’, surround us permanently, says the artist.
People living in England versus people in Oman all spin at different speeds and at different angles every day in this known universe. To her it is a wonderful, delicate mystery.
“We are all unique. It is a puzzle to ‘fathom out’ those wonderful algorithms singular to every person. Humans are distinct spiritual beings driving their bodies like a driver would his or her car (not like the dummy in Musk’s car spinning car round and round though – pun intended)”, she states. It is like a beautiful, endless algorithm, she says.
An Artist Par Excellence
A gifted synestheste (a person who may see sounds, taste words or feel a sensation on the skin when smelling certain scents), Sharmaine is endowed with the ability to smell and hear noise of even written words, and experience different tastes simultaneously. This unique ‘union of senses’ manifests in her works through intense and dense drawings that simulate music in colours. “I hear the picture in a continuous time loop”, she admits.
Her work represents, in her own words, a degree of supernatural observance. A kaleidoscopic composition of bright shades, they include maps, puzzles, subliminal layers of messages, and startling hidden musical compositions that mimic the Chladni frequency graph shape. “Everything that I draw is just a postage stamp of a much bigger picture, sort of like a blueprint though,” Sharmaine says.
This talented artist also fights an auto-immune condition Secondary Sjögren Syndrome with mixed tissue disorder, which continually pulls her down. “Some of my works may look a bit shaky as most of it was done while watching a movie or while multi-tasking, as I was in too much pain to concentrate on only one thing at the time. My husband Willem lightens the burden with great compassion and love,” she smiles.
Future Plans
Sharmaine is planning yet another exhibition soon, which will include her prized work ‘The Pearl of Nizwa’ based on Oman. Her art catalogue and work have caught the attention of GAA (Global Art Affairs Foundation), and they have invited her to exhibit at the Venice Biennale from 11 May to 24 November 2019.
Mars Trojan – Elon – The Shroud – Photo credits: SHARM.T.P.
Previously, two of the artist’s works have been sent into low-space orbit on the nano satellite, Asgardia-1. They include ‘Mars Trojan–Elon–The Shroud’, a drawing featuring ‘Elon Musk’ and a dummy of him, with a space rocket falling away, done surprisingly long before the actual launching of the Falcon Heavy, recently, and ‘Change: Ygdrasil’, a paper and digital composition, posing the question whether we need change both on Earth and in space.
As she says, “to just look at art is not enough but to connect heart to heart” is important, and this is true when we view her works and imbibe the visual treat that she creates so effortlessly.
More of her works can be seen in her website www.artshowroom.org and instagram https://www.instagram.com/sharm.t.p/
