Richardt Strydom is a practicing artist and former academic and researcher. He has participated in numerous national and international art as well as design exhibitions. Recent examples include: Design of Dissent, School of Visual Arts, New York and Payne Gallery, Pennsylvania, USA; Rendezvous Focus Painting, UCT Michaelis School of Fine Arts, Cape Town. Ik ben een Afrikander III, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Lens, University of Stellenbosch’s SASOL Art Museum and L’origine du monde at Aardklop National Arts Festival, Potchefstroom (curated by Paul Boulitreau). Strydom’s first solo exhibition A verbis ad verbera – From Words to Blows was part of the official 2010 Aardklop National Arts Festival programme.
Strydom has received a number of awards including an ABSA l’Atelier Merit Award (1997), a Sasol New Signatures Merit Award (1997), Overall Winner of the Sasol New Signatures Competition in 2008, and Outstanding Visual Artist Award, Stellenbosch Woordfees 2010. He was co-curator (2004-2005) as well as curator (2006 – 2008) of the Aardklop National Arts Festival visual arts programme.
Strydom studied Fine Arts at the then Vaal Triangle Technikon, finishing his National Diploma in 1992, majoring in painting, photography and printmaking. He completed a B-Tech Fine Arts (cum laude) in 1998 at the same institution. Strydom currently lives and works in Potchefstroom. In 2010 he received his Masters degree (cum laude) in Art History from the North-West University. His Masters’ dissertation offers a post-colonial reading of the depiction of Afrikaner ancestry in the works of the 19th century explorer artist Charles Davidson Bell.
When studying in the early 1990s, Strydom took inspiration from South African Resistance Art of the late 1980s. Ever since Strydom’s art has explored the boundaries of cultural and art traditions and identity, as these intersect with everyday life.
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