Van Zyl, Adelle

According to her siblings, she was caught in the Kouga mountains in 1981, after which she spent her formative years on a farm in the Eastern Cape. Today, she is a full-time interdisciplinary artist and lives on a smallholding north of Pretoria, South Africa, with her husband, mother, two cats, one dog, and 43 chickens.
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Her art practice spans painting, collage, and installation. She creates realistic, emotionally resonant paintings of architectural details that serve as markers of memory and cultural identity. Through these works, she investigates the psychological connections formed with interior spaces that carry the traces of lived experiences.
Alongside her paintings, she produces mixed-media collages shaped by processes of chance and subconscious decision-making. Her richly textured landscapes draw inspiration from the frottage techniques of Max Ernst, while her seamlessly integrated imagery creates convincing surreal realities. She also occasionally constructs immersive installations using found objects.
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She obtained her Master of Visual Arts degree from Unisa in 2017, graduating with distinction for her exhibition S(h)elves. In addition, she has completed several short courses across various visual arts disciplines and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies from the University of Pretoria. She recently authored the painting study guide for the University of South Africa and continues to mentor emerging artists.
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In 2022, she was recognised by Art.co.za as one of South Africa’s most promising rising artists, and in 2024 she was acknowledged by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture as a prolific female artist in the ArtBank collection. Her work has been selected for the Absa L’Atelier, Sasol New Signatures, the Sanlam Portrait Award, and the Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Award. To date, she has presented four solo exhibitions, three shared solo exhibitions, and participated in more than 50 group exhibitions. She is currently working towards another solo and several group exhibitions. Somewhere between all this, she tries to find time to be a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, mom, friend, and homesteader.