WILD

a solo exhibition by Sue Conradie

2 - 30 July 2026

Blanket of sleep by Sue Conradie | Mixed media on canvas | 20cm x 20cm.

WORLDART is pleased to present WILD, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Sue Conradie, opening on Cape Town’s July First Thursdays event, 2 July 2026, and running through to 30 July 2026 at the gallery’s Long Street premises in Cape Town.

In WILD, Conradie returns to the question that drives her work: what does it mean to exist as a natural, organic human being, free of indoctrination and societal noise? Nature is her primary text. Unafraid of its own wildness, the natural world does not negotiate with what threatens to destabilise it — and it is precisely this quality of fearless, instinctive equilibrium that Conradie seeks to paint back into consciousness.

The works in this exhibition move between states: light and dark, calm and energetic, comforting and frightening. They are painted from what Conradie describes as an ancient memory — the pre-verbal, sensory intelligence that resides within every human body, and that modern life consistently asks us to override. Her process enacts this same principle: she builds up layers of oil glaze and then removes them, uncovering light from within the paint rather than imposing it from without. The paintings do not arrive through planning but through listening.

Across imagined landscapes rendered in oils, Conradie invites viewers into terrain that is simultaneously external and internal — ravines, forests, hills and waterways that register as psychic states as much as physical places. The work is expressionist in sensibility, rooted in close observation of colour, and shaped by an affinity for Japanese art and the African bush alongside the gestural and classical traditions of Western painting.

Conradie is a self-taught painter and published poet based in Fisherhaven, near Hermanus. She has been painting professionally since 2010, and her work is held in the Spier Arts Trust Collection and in private collections across South Africa. She is a founding member of the Kommetjie Open Studios and a member of The Kommetjie Collective. Her debut poetry collection, The Heart is a River, was published in 2025. In 2025 she was also selected as a winner of the WORLDART10 competition.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Exhibition: WILD — Sue Conradie

Dates: 2 – 30 July 2026

Opening: Thursday 2 July 2026, 6–9 pm (First Thursdays, Cape Town)

Venue: WORLDART, 68 Long Street, Cape Town

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm  |  Saturday 10 am – 2 pm

Web: www.worldart.co.za

Artist contact: conradie.art@gmail.com  |  @conradi.art