Summer Wish

Summer Wish is an expression of love for the mountain ‘Hangklip’ painted by South African artist Jeremy Van der Want in oil paint on a 60 by 40 cm canvas. Painted in 2021 during the global pandemic during which the artist sheltered in Komani, or Queenstown as a guest of a long time resident of the town. The painting is sweetly reverent towards the mountain itself and focusses on the distance rather than the foreground. In the foreground is a small white roof shape which conversely mirrors the shape of the mountain above. This vestigially rendered form indicates the artist’s disinterest in the human endeavour. Rejected as a subject but so ubiquitous it cannot be avoided, the makings of humankind are portrayed as a pale and insignificant echo of the almost holy reverence held by the artist for the more permanent workings of nature and the planet itself. The subject is rendered several times in the year as the artist ventures further and further by foot into the wilderness surrounding the mountain, looking for a closer connection to the nature presented as sublime.