Notes

Luan Nel explores the duality of wind in his landscape paintings, capturing both its invigorating and chaotic qualities. His relationship with the wind is complex; while it can energize and uplift, it also carries a sense of foreboding. Harnessing the power of wind could enable us to generate electricity, a topic that has been a key issue in South Africa for over a decade.

Wind is essentially the movement of air, but how can it be depicted? Painting moving air itself is nearly impossible without resorting to abstraction. Instead, Nel conveys this movement by depicting debris swept up by the wind—objects that float and fly through the sky.

This debris includes ribbons, pollution, and plastic bags, along with various abstractions that serve as metaphors for the waste we all create. These elements symbolize not only physical rubbish but also the narratives we construct and share every day as we navigate our lives on Earth.